Amateur lightweight Salim Ellis-Bey shares an origin story with Muhammad Ali

Salim Ellis-Bey might be an ideal Philadelphia boxer to follow in IBF welterweight titleholder Jaron “Boots” Ennis’ footsteps.

Ellis-Bey, a 17-year-old phenom in the amateur lightweight division, recently won the 2024 USA National Championship in December and was granted the Youth Male Outstanding Boxer award. 

Ellis-Bey, who now holds an amateur record of 123-20, trains out of the Front Street Gym that is best known for being a set piece in the movie Creed. 

His father and now trainer, Dawud Bey AL-Rasul, bought Ellis-Bey a Mongoose bicycle when his son was roughly eight years old. They lived in a rough neighborhood in Philadelphia. Ellis-Bey went into a store to get a snack, only to come out of the store and see someone riding his bike down the street.

Ellis-Bey tried to chase him, but his young legs couldn’t catch the man who stole his bike. He went home disappointed and angry. After a stern lecture from his father, Ellis-Bey began to punch a couch. His father told him to go hit the heavy bag in front of the house instead. Ellis-Bey hit the heavy bag so hard that the sound of the punches could be heard in the house.  

“Is that how you hit the bag?” his father asked. Then his father came outside and started instructing him. Ellis-Bey started throwing one-twos. It seemed like he was playing Mortal Kombat. Instead of hitting the A and B buttons, he hit the bag.  

His father asked if he wanted to go to the boxing gym. They went the very next day, and Ellis-Bey has been in the gym ever since. 

“I tell people that story sometimes because that’s the same way that Muhammad Ali started boxing,” his father said. “Somebody stole Ali’s bike and he went to the boxing gym. He wanted to learn how to box because if he found out who took his bike, he wanted to be able to whip their ass. That was the same as my son.” 

Despite a storybook entry into the sport, it wasn’t until a few years ago that Ellis-Bey decided that boxing could be a career for him. 

“I was 14 years old when I decided that I’d aspire to be a professional fighter. It was before the pandemic. I was boxing, so I could be participating in a sport,” Ellis-Bey said. “When I turned 14, that’s when I decided one day I wanted to go pro.” 

For the Nationals this year, Ellis-Bey had a chip on his shoulder. He and his team didn’t like where they were ranked. As an individual, he was given the fourth seed.

“I assumed that I would be seeded higher in the tournament,” Ellis-Bey said. “I have more national wins than the number two seed and the number three seed.” 

“We took it as disrespect, because Salim is ranked number six in the nation in terms of win-loss,” his father said. “If there are only five people with better national records than him, how can two people be ahead of me in my own weight class? We took [the ranking] as disrespect and decided to let that be the chip on our shoulder. We trained hard, we worked hard, and we were able to go in there and get the desired results.”

After picking up a stoppage win, he faced one of the favorites in his division, power-punching Marcus Luther. His father knew that a match-up with Luther was inevitable – Luther had beaten his son a year before. This time, Ellis-Bey won a decision.

“I was preparing him to bump into Marcus again,” his father said. “The biggest change from last year to this year was his physical strength. He just needed to be bigger and stronger to absorb Marcus a little bit better, because Marcus is a big puncher.

“I worked on building up his body for a year because we felt that we had more skill. To be completely honest, we thought we were better. My thing is always to make it so they can’t say you lost.

“We trained hard. We worked hard.  We were able to go in there and get the desired results. We had a plan. We were able to execute the plan, and I am proud of that as a coach. I’m usually all business, and then after Saturday, when they handed the awards out, I kind of, like, relaxed and rejoiced. Then I looked back on everything that we accomplished.”