Boxxer promoter Ben Shalom is planning to bring through more talent by adding to his stable, rather than signing established fighters in or around the world scene.
Shalom, the lone promoter contracted to Sky Sports, has signed several Olympians, including Lauren Price, Frazer Clarke and Ben Whittaker over the years, and admits he wants to build stars, rather than inherit them.
“We’ve just signed [Scottish middleweight prospect] Sam Hickey, who I’m very excited about,” Shalom said.
“We’re looking, probably just through experience, signing fighters from debut with the right mentality, with the right fanbase, with the right ambition to get to the top. We’ve had most success with the Adam Azims, [Callum] Simpsons, [Ben] Whittaker, Caroline [Dubois] because you start the relationship from the start of their career and so we want to find signings that we really believe in and we can build and take to the top, so there are signings but we are looks for stars to build rather than marquee signings.”
Shalom has two shows close together coming up, with Natasha Jonas headlining in Liverpool later this month and Callum Simpson in Sheffield in January. Junior welterweight contender Adam Azim will return in London in February, too.
One fighter who has been noticeably quiet in recent months is Paris Olympic super heavyweight Delicious Orie, who had the tough task of picking up where Audley Harrison, David Price, Anthony Joshua, Joe Joyce and Frazer Clarke had left off after winning a medal for Team GB. Orie left Paris empty-handed, but subsequently revealed the WWE had come calling, interested in his services for their travelling roadshow. Shalom, understandably, would be interested in Orie, should he want to turn professional.
“He’s a heavyweight, he talks well, I know he was looking at WWE for a while and I know he’s taking his time to see what the best options are that are out there for him, let’s see what happens over the next few weeks,” said Shalom.
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