Dmitry Salita is far from a small promoter, but he also isn’t working with a massive budget. What matters to Salita is a path for the development of each fighter. To Salita, this is important to the longevity of Salita Promotions.
“If you take a young, talented future doctor who is in high school, one who has the potential to be one of the best surgeons in the world, and you take him and put him in the operating room, he is going to be in shock, he is going to overreact, he is going to get scared,” Salita said. “If he goes through the process of going to college, going to medical school, internship, step by step, level by level, that is how his potential comes to life.”
Salita gives credit to the matchmaking process, which he learned during his time as a fighter with Top Rank Inc. Salita fought Amir Khan for the WBA junior welterweight title, and though he lost, he gained valuable experience at the top of the sport. While Salita also dealt with other promoters over the course of his career, he noticed that Top Rank built fighters differently.
“I was a young kid. I asked a lot of questions. Sometimes I got screamed at, sometimes I got a lot of information,” Salita said. “Being with Top Rank had a lot to do with my development style.”
Then came Salita’s competitive nature. Salita, by his own account, wasn’t the most physically gifted, but he was dedicated and worked hard, as he was 59-5 as an amateur.
“I had a chip on my shoulder, being an immigrant and being poor. I had the drive to succeed,” Salita said. “I have been around great fighters since I was a kid. I feel like I have a relationship with the sport of boxing. It feels like a close relative.”
One of the most important roles of a promoter is to develop the fighter – he remembers the words of boxing legend Johnny Bos, who would say, “It takes five years to build a fighter, and 15 minutes to ruin a fighter.”
“Making a bad match can ruin a fighter,” Salita said. “A guy could be 12-0 and fight a guy that is 6-3, and the fighter who is 6-3 could beat him or make him look bad. There is a science that I have lived and I feel is ingrained in me.”
A great example is one of Salita’s standout junior welterweights, Joshua Pagan, who is fighting on October 23 in Puerto Rico against Maliek Montgomery. Pagan, 13-0 (4 KOs), enters the fight as a favorite against Montgomery, 20-1 (18 KOs), who is coming off the first loss of his career in March to Jeremy Hill. Yet Montgomery has a deep amateur pedigree and is five years older than the 25-year-old Pagan.
“I know the styles that make fights,” Salita said. “Look at Pagan’s career, look at all the undefeated fighters he has fought. They all have pushed him to the limit, but he has come out on top.”
Salita has guided Claressa Shields to a Hall of Fame career after she won two Olympic gold medals. Salita first heard about Shields from an article in The Wall Street Journal.
“It was when Hillary Clinton was running for president, and I really thought society was in a position for a woman to be in a position of leadership,” Salita said. “I read about Shields and her story and thought she checked all the boxes from storytelling, to challenges in life, to being an outstanding boxer.”
Though Shields received other offers, Salita eventually landed the GWOAT.
“The first event with me, she was the main event on Showtime as a part of ShoBox,” Salita said. “It was the first time a woman had headlined a boxing event on premium cable television. The rest was history.”
Salita promised Shields equitable money to her male peers from the Olympic Games. That came with a plan: building up a market in the Midwest.
“In her fourth fight, she fought for the world title,” Salita said. “Her last event, she sold 16,000 tickets. That doesn’t happen overnight. She fought in Detroit and Flint, Michigan, mostly in her career.”
Though Shields fought Savannah Marshall in the U.K. and Christina Hammer in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the foundation of her career was building her fan base at home. Shields became a sports franchise for fans in Flint and Detroit eager to see the highest level of boxing. In July, the fruits of their labors paid off when Shields sold those 16,000 tickets against Lani Daniels.
“There are not a lot of fighters who can sell that many tickets fighting Lani Daniels,” Salita said. “It shows what we built, and what kind of star Claressa has become.”
Then there is heavyweight Jermaine Franklin.
“After I saw him train in the gym, I thought he was one of the best American heavyweights, and with the right ingredients, he can really do something,” Salita said. “He had some ups and downs in his career. He had some issues in his personal life, and he didn’t want to fight Dillian Whyte. I told him ‘I know it isn’t the best situation, but you can beat him, and it is the best situation for you.’”
Franklin lost a close split decision to Dillian Whyte in late 2022, but from the fight came a bout with Anthony Joshua in April 2023, which Franklin would also lose. By taking risks, Franklin headlined major cards in the United Kingdom.
Recently, Franklin concluded his contract with Salita, winning a unanimous decision against unbeaten Ivan Dychko on the undercard of Terence Crawford’s victory over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
“Ivan Dychko, if you look at his amateur and pro career, if you let him box, he will look like Mark Breland,” Salita said. “If you put pressure on him, you get physical with him, he just folds up.”
Franklin now has a notable name and future opportunities ahead of him.
Salita’s history of building heavyweights extends back over the past decade. He helped Swedish heavyweight Otto Wallin land a fight with Tyson Fury. Wallin cut Fury, which caused tense moments in an extremely competitive fight that Fury won by unanimous decision.
“It was a great fight to make to put Wallin at the next stratosphere of his career,” Salita said. “He did that by giving Tyson Fury such a great fight.”
Salita recalled meeting Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller when Miller was 16 years old in training camp. He put Miller on a card early in his career against Isaac Villanueva in 2011. Miller would stop him in three rounds.
“His opponent came to win, and Jarrell showed flexibility, pizzazz, and personality,” Salita said. “After the fight, I said to him, ‘You’re the next heavyweight champion of the world!’”
Salita believes that in 2013-2014, Miller was the best unsigned fighter in New York. Miller’s first official fight with Salita was in 2014, when he fought Joshua Harris at the Millennium Theater in Brighton Beach, New York.
“The first press release we did, I wanted to associate Jarrell with Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe. It said, ‘Brooklyn heavyweight who is the best American heavyweight,’” Salita said. “After I put out that release, everybody started calling.”
Salita recalled Showtime pushing for Miller to fight Adam Kownacki, but Miller didn’t want the fight because the two were friends.
“In 2017, the next step was for Jarrell to fight Deontay Wilder. I really felt like Wilder was not the right choice for him at the time,” Salita said. “It was going to be a big money fight, but not a big, big money fight.”
Salita remembered that Miller found himself at a standstill with Showtime, and after talking with industry insiders, felt he had two paths for Miller: one was with Golden Boy Promotions, and the other was with Matchroom Boxing.
Salita ended up going with Matchroom Boxing, which didn’t have a deep infrastructure at the time in the United States, but Matchroom also had Anthony Joshua, a titleholder, a huge ticket seller and a big money fighter. Salita served as a co-promoter alongside Matchroom Boxing for two shows.
“We positioned Jarrell to fight Anthony Joshua, and June 1, 2019, was going to be the day he made $7 million, but he failed a drug test, and then Andy Ruiz [substituted for Miller and] knocked out Joshua,” Salita said. “I am a fan of Joshua; he is a great person, great fighter and great ambassador, but from a boxing point-of-view, he fought his whole career in England. As a fighter, you always look for comfort. Different fighters react to things in different ways.
“I believe being in the locker room with a guy like Jarrell would have played with his mind,” Salita said. “I thought Jarrell had a great chance to win. It ended up being Andy Ruiz, but the plan was for it to be Jarrell.”
Early in junior welterweight Shohjahon Ergashev’s career, Salita matched him with the 18-0 Sonny Fredrickson. Salita heard doubts before the fight about matching Ergashev, who had been brought over from Uzbekistan to Detroit for six months, with an undefeated fighter.
“Ergashev [essentially] ended his career,” Salita said. “He broke his jaw, broke his ribs, and that is how he arrived on the scene.”
Super middleweight Vladimir Shishkin is another fighter that Salita takes joy in talking about. Shishkin defeated former title contender Nadjib Mohammedi in 2018. Ten months later, Shishkin was fighting on a Salita Promotions card against DeAndre Ware.
“When I saw him, I thought this guy has the skills to be something special,” Salita said. “I had to overpay for Ware, but he was a perfect style for Shishkin because he was an aggressive, strong, slow-footed guy. Shishkin stopped him and became Showtime’s prospect of the year.”
Shishkin fought for the IBF super middleweight title last year against William Scull, losing a controversial unanimous decision. Earlier this month, Shishkin suffered his second pro defeat in an elimination bout for another shot at the IBF title, getting stopped in the eighth round against Osleys Iglesias.
Things don’t always go as planned, like when prospect Joseph Hicks Jnr lost to Wendy Toussaint in June. Regardless, Salita goes back to what he knows – boxing, with his many years as a competitor himself serving as a guide.
“Building fighters is a science,” Salita said. “It comes from knowing the sport and understanding everyone’s uniqueness in their development.”
