![]() “When you went to the store and your mother has to take her wallet and pay with food stamps, it’s humbling and a bit of an embarrassing experience.” “I grew up in Brooklyn and spent our first few years on welfare, food stamps and public assistance. He captured a New York Daily News Golden Gloves title in 2001 at 139 pounds and he was also the U.S. “My family emigrated from Ukraine in 1991,” states Salita who posted a 35-2-1 record with 18 kayos as a pro in 12 years. Not bad for an emigrant who promotes the face of women’s boxing, Claressa Shields. Yet, he gets the job done with his company Salita Promotions which started in 2011. “I love the sport of boxing,” says Salita, 41, a practicing Orthodox Jew who does not work on the Sabbath and keeps Kosher. Now, what is a nice Jewish boy like you doing in the world of boxing?ĭmitriy “Star of David” Salita has been asked that countless times. It makes him different, special and very much appreciated by the fighters.” “He listens to his fighters with a fighter’s ear. He shows them an understanding from the fighter’s side of the table. “He connects with the fighters in a way that few promoters do. He understands the fighters innately because he was a fighter himself,” states Taffet. Years later they became friends and partners, and Taffet loves his moxie. “He was fighting on HBO, and I wanted to wish him luck.” “I saw a ring of about 15, 20 men all wearing black, head to toe in black robes and which is the religious garb of Orthodox Jews. “He was trying to lose a few ounces to make 140 pounds, but he was surrounded,” recalls Taffet with a laugh. The first time he saw Salita he was naked in the sauna at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas. He’s seen a lot of boxers not represented properly, but he likes what he sees in Shields’ manager Dmitriy Salita. She’s quite the prodigy,” says Taffet who spent 32 years at HBO with the last 25 in sports. She loves to learn and every fight she shows us new things that amaze me. “Her boxing IQ, her natural abilities are something to behold, and she just continues to get better and better beyond imagination and description.” “I always tell people she is one of the three greatest fighters that I ever saw: Floyd Mayweather, Jr. He also headed HBO’s Pay-Per-View entity. “Claressa Shields has God-given abilities that are once in a lifetime,” says Mark Taffet, Shields’ manager, and president of Mark Taffet Media. “You can be a young, Black, poor girl and you can make it to where I’ve made it just through hard work, dedication and prayer.” Shields wants to show she has a following, a brand and a message: She’s delighted to headline the first ever fight card at the Little Caesars Arena which is “down the street from my hometown in front of 15,000 fans.” “Sometimes I just feel like, can I get any stronger or any faster than what I am? I’m always shocked to see, “Yep, sure can.'” “He understands the competitive part about boxing.”įirst she has to get past Cornejo, but she doesn’t feel she has hit her peak yet. ![]() “Him being a fighter, he knows how much we have to focus and how we have to train,” she says. Salita sees other things from inside the ring. He can sit in a room with anybody and see things from a different perspective. ![]() “Mark and Dmitriy are the brains,” states Shields. “That’s the biggest mega fight that could ever happen.”Īll her goals are in reach because of her team of manager (Mark Taffet) and promoter (Dmitriy Salita). “Katie Taylor,” she announces about the undisputed lightweight champion from Ireland who defeated Brooklyn’s Amanda Serrano last year in the women’s Fight-of-the-Year. She says she can go up to 168, down to 154 and maybe even 147 for just one fighter. She also captured the super middleweight championship in her fifth pro fight, and she’s dabbled in MMA (1-1) with a bout scheduled this winter. ![]() She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist (2012 London, 2016 Rio), has been the undisputed junior middleweight champ, and is the current undisputed middleweight boss. “I am the greatest,” she says, though not as loud as the original author, but Claressa Shields is the face of women’s boxing, and she has the resume. ![]()
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