This is the third of a three-part series on the makings of Dmitriy Salita’s Big Time Boxing. You can read the previous two stories about Salita’s matchmaking and broadcast team here. 

The focus this time is on the formation of the infrastructure, and how Salita Promotions was formed. 

The turning point: a knockout loss to Amir Khan. 

It was brief but pivotal. It forced Salita to reassess his future, and ultimately sparked his entry into promotion. 

Salita’s promotional journey began when he signed with John Wirt, which would lead to a world title fight against Khan. 

Wirt, who was Don King’s lawyer for a period of time before becoming a partner in Roy Jones Jnr’s Square Ring Promotions, now works with heavyweight Kubrat Pulev.

After Salita fought Khan, he wanted to fight again, and he admits that money was running out. The fight lasted less than a round, but he felt it was the easiest fight of his life. 

“I met with several promoters, but the contracts they offered were too restrictive and didn’t align with my vision,” Salita told BoxingScene. “I had a strong fan base and support in New York City, so I decided to take the initiative and promote my own show.”

Salita had three major promoters during his time as a professional: Top Rank Inc., DiBella Entertainment, and Square Ring. He had seen how different companies had done business. 

An edge that Salita believes he enjoys over most others is his first-hand experience as a world-class boxer. His passion for the sport adds to the equation.  

The years spent at Top Rank are regarded by Salita as formative. It gave him the chance to peek behind the curtain and watch the attention given to his development as a young fighter.

Salita also enjoyed a front row view in watching contemporaries such as Miguel Cotto develop into stars, whether it was in matchmaking, in-ring performances, and the narratives constructed around their fights. 

Yet, many successful business people have entered boxing without having mirrored the same success. Salita took note. 

“There were a lot of smart, successful people,” Salita said. “But they often missed the small details that connect the business with the sport of boxing, and that’s where the magic happens.”

To understand Salita’s ambition for his company in its infancy, you have to understand his beginnings. 

“My family immigrated here from the Soviet Union, and I started boxing in the basement of a parking garage in Starrett City Boxing Club,” Salita said. “Whatever I do, I push myself to the limit.” 

Salita, from Odessa, Ukraine, promoted his first fight in 2010 in Brooklyn. He fought Franklin Gonzalez in the main event. 

David Berlin, the former New York State Athletic Commissioner, now serves as general counsel for the promotion. He knew Salita as a fighter and now as a promoter. 

“Dmitry is someone who is looking at the bigger picture,” Berlin told BoxingScene. “Part of the building of his business means finding the right people to be around him.”

Berlin’s duties are looking over contracts, negotiating fight purses, and dealing with sanctioning bodies. Berlin remembered the first fight card he attended when he was the head of the Athletic Commission promoted by Salita Promotions. That fight was a heavyweight match-up between Steve Bujaj and Junior Wright. 

“I am telling you, you have to find it on YouTube,” Berlin said. “It is one of the great all-time wars. It was New York City fight-of-the-year,” Salita said of the bout. “It was a bout that I felt had all the ingredients to be significant and lived up to those expectations.”

Berlin witnessed Salita go from a regional Brooklyn-based promoter to a national player, as he began to get fight dates with Jarrell Miller and Claressa Shields on Showtime. 

“He is bold in what he has done,” Berlin said. “Dmitry has a larger vision.”

Mark Taffet runs Mark Taffet Media and manages professional fighters who are signed to Salita Promotions. He has also currently advises Salita. 

This is based on his experience when he was the senior vice president of HBO Boxing. That advice has involved event planning and execution, cost management discipline, sponsors, and television deals. 

“Dmitry has fighters at different levels, and television events at different levels,” Taffet told BoxingScene. “He has what I call A-level events, a number of them featuring Claressa Shields. He has had what I would call world championship events featuring fighters like Tony Harrison, and he has had development shows, which feature some of the fighters who are not yet stars, but are on their way.”

Each show has a different budget, whether it is production, marketing, or the cost of the fights themselves. 

“Fitting an appropriate budget to the size or level of the event is one of the most critical things to do,” Taffet said. “Dmitry and I talk about that a lot.”

Then came Claressa Shields. 

The two-time Olympic gold medalist Shields signed with Salita Promotions in 2017.  Taffet served as Shields’ manager for nine years. Taffet’s deal with Shields ended in July. 

“Every fighter needs a home base,” Taffet said. “We looked at Flint, Michigan, where she was born and raised, and we looked at Detroit, which was the biggest urban major market near her hometown of Flint.”

Howard Handler is the President of 313 Presents, a live entertainment company which promotes events in and around Detroit.

313 Presents has access to all the major sporting arenas, including Little Caesars Arena. 

Handler has deep ties to boxing. Lou Handler, his great-uncle, was a professional boxer, who went on to become a referee. He reffed Joe Louis’ first professional fight, a Ray Robinson bout, as welll as Jake LaMotta middleweight title fight against Laurent Dauthuille.

“Claressa Shields ultimately created an opportunity for all of us to reignite Detroit’s passion and big time boxing being more of a central part of what we do here,” Handler told BoxingScene. “Detroit was a fight mecca for whatever reason over a number of years, grew quiet, and hadn’t continued to build on that history. I think [Salita] is a guy with a big idea, willing to do the hard work and to build the right relationships to build that vision.”

Taffet explained how they looked over venues that Shields could fight in during different stages of her career. Smaller venues to start, with her last bout against Lani Daniels taking place at  Little Caesars which held approximately 15,000 fans.

“The goal was always the big building – it used to be the Joe Louis Arena, but that was torn down and Little Caesars Arena has become the premier venue,” Salita said.

For Handler, Shields-Daniels was a full circle moment. Tony Harrison, a Detroit native, was the co-feature. Harrison’s grandfather, Henry Hank, was promoted by Handler’s grandfather.

“We had to work at it, I think it was in 2022, we had 8,000 people,” Handler said. “We had 15,000 people in Little Caesars this summer. Sometimes you got to put your toe in the water, make an investment, build and three years later look at what we did.”

Together, they built Shields’ hometown market into a major boxing hub, using Detroit’s fight heritage as the foundation for her rise to global superstardom.

Exposure was another key point, especially when Shields defeated Savannah Marshall in the United Kingdom.

“It positioned Claressa to be a superstar,” Salita said. “And allowed her to build her brand internationally.”

Salita Promotions, aligning with DAZN, launched “Big Time Boxing” in February 2024, serving as a developmental series to build up the up-and-comers on its roster. 

This Thursday, Salita will promote his latest incarnation of “Big Time Boxing” with a main event bout between lightweight Joshua Pagan and Maliek Montgomery in a 10-round bout. Salita sees it as a cross between Tuesday Night Fights and ShoBox. 

The bout centers around the unbeaten Pagan facing the toughest opponent of his career in Montgomery, a top amateur, coming off the first loss of his career in March to Jeremy Hill. The program, as described by broadcaster Corey Erdman, is a spiritual successor to ShoBox: The New Generation.

In that vein, it’s a fitting continuation. 

Salita has promoted shows on the prospect based series, largely run by Gordon Hall who was its executive producer as well as senior vice president of Showtime Sports. Hall knew of Salita as a fighter, but recalled his first experience working with him as a promoter in 2016.

“The legacy of ShoBox is that we turned prospects into contenders who went on to be world champions,” Hall said. “We showed tomorrow’s champions today. He was a young green promoter who had worked hard and was a sponge for information. He also surrounded himself with a good advisory team.”

Chris DeBlasio spent nearly two decades at Showtime Sports. He worked on some of the biggest pay-per-view events in the history of the sport, including Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor, and Floyd Mayweather-Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. 

Among the many gaps he filled, DeBlasio was also a key part of ShoBox, a show that developed young talent and served as a gateway to Showtime Championship Boxing. 

Fighters like Ricky Hatton, Andre Ward, Timothy Bradley Jnr, Regis Prograis, Jaron “Boots” Ennis, and Shawn Porter came through the groundbreaking series. Salita sent over several of his fighters as well, including Shields, Vladimir Shishkin, Jermaine Franklin and Jarrell Miller.

These days, DeBlasio oversees his own company (DeBlasio Communications) and also serves as a consultant to Salita. 

“I could see right away his appreciation, love, and understanding that ShoBox was an incredibly valuable product, and that type of product without it being on Showtime needed to continue,” DeBlasio told BoxingScene. “I could see he was looking for the long-term health of the sport.”

Hall remembered Salita in his mid-30s, having fighters who were featured on ShoBox. The first Salita-promoted show saw his fighter Eudy Bernardo get knocked out by Mason Menard. Another unbeaten fighter he promoted, Alexey Zubov, lost a unanimous decision to Constantin Bejenaru. 

“He [Salita] came to play by matching those kids as tough as he could,” Hall said. “That showed me that he clearly understood what we were trying to do with ShoBox.” 

Just as important are Salita’s fond memories of fights based around a narrative arc. 

“Top Rank was my first promoter, and one of the first things I noticed was that they had several publicists and several matchmakers, because these are the two important aspects in building a fighter – publicity, storytelling, and building fighters the right kind of way,” Salita said. “Different fighters are at different levels of development, and they need different types of opponents to make exciting fights to move themselves to the next level.”

“I remember when I was a kid rushing home from the boxing gym to watch HBO Championship Boxing or Showtime Championship Boxing,” Salita said. “The behind-the-scenes films and storytelling were inspiring.  Every fighter has a story,” Salita shared. “You don’t go to a boxing gym and turn professional from a calm life. Usually, people who turn professional have things in their lives that are interesting.”

DeBlasio helps with this, as well as coordinating some of the narratives around fights. DeBlasio explained he helps coordinate between different teams and departments from the fighter’s team or the production staff, aligning similar messages and themes.

“I really loved that aspect of the job when I was at Showtime,” DeBlasio said. “To say, this is what we see the event as, and what is that messaging we want to convey to the public, and to compel them to buy a ticket or watch the event.”

“In a business with a lot of big egos, Dmitry doesn’t have one,” Berlin said. “He is always willing to listen, to be criticized, and willing to grow.”

Salita’s response: “It is not good to be the smartest guy in the room,” he said, when asked about this.

What stands out to Wirt about Salita is the way he treats fighters. In simple economics, the more the promoter pays a fighter, the less profit margin they make. 

“He is one of the hardest working, dedicated people in the sport,” Wirt said. “There are a lot of bad people in boxing, and Dmitry is one of the good guys.”

“Every promoter has their ace in the hole, their core strength that enables them to succeed in a competitive marketplace,” Taffet said. “Dmitry Salita is a fighter’s promoter, being a former fighter himself, fighters are truly first and foremost at Salita Promotions.”

“What I noticed about Dmitry was he was a lot different than the other fighters that I worked with over the years, because he had a really strong business sense,” Wirt said. “I kept encouraging him to go to law school, because this fighting stuff isn’t going to last forever.”

“He always says boxing is his life,” Berlin said. “At the same time, he is a person with so many different interests. He is a boxing promoter, but he is constantly recommending books to me, video clips of something interesting that isn’t boxing-related. He is a guy who is interested in learning. Right now, he is taking classes at Northwestern University in Law.”

“You have to grow and be flexible,” Salita said. “I learn a lot of different things about business, managing, sports, and all different things, and I train my mind to connect it to the sport of boxing.”

Salita is currently taking classes at Northwestern University, pursuing an M.S.L. degree in their law program. Salita, even when talking about his latest endeavors, can’t shake his boxing comparison when explaining it. As Salita evolves as a person, so too does his business. 

“I see school as my training camp,” Salita said with a laugh. “It’s preparing me for the next stage, just without the aches of making weight. Boxing shaped who I am, and now I’m shaping the business around the sport I love.”

Lucas Ketelle is the author of “Inside the Ropes of Boxing,” a guide for young fighters, a writer for BoxingScene and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Find him on X at @BigDogLukie.