Boxxer Promoter Shalom Salutes Saudi Arabia’s Involvement in Boxing

While his British promotional rivals are in Saudi Arabia this week, Boxxer’s Ben Shalom admits there is an inevitability about his stable of fighters joining the lucrative shows in the Middle East.

In an interview with Boxing Social, Shalom said that the goal of his business was to build stars as home, but once they’re established, possibly take them on the road.

Asked about whether Boxxer would be in Saudi Arabia soon, he said: “Of course. We’d love to and we’ve had offers. Sometimes it just comes down to the fighters, what they want to do. What their opportunities are. You have to look at it in the sense that we’ve got a young stable. We’re trying to build stars of the future. 

“We haven’t got an Anthony Joshua or a Tyson Fury that can headline one of those shows, we want to create them. When you’ve got an Adam Azim or a Ben Whittaker, Lauren Price, Caroline Dubois, Callum Simpson, those are our fighters coming through and we want them to be the stars of tomorrow and a lot of them want to headline. 

“A lot of them want their homecomings. A lot of them want those shows and we’ve been proud to deliver that; Tasha Jonas in Liverpool, [Joshua] Buatsi in London, [Fabio] Wardley-[Frazer] Clarke when Frazer had his opportunity, Lauren Price got her homecoming, Richard Riakporhe now gets his stadium fight, and Chris Billam-Smith, and then we’re off to Barnsley for Callum Simpson and Wolverhampton for Ben Whittaker so, for me, that’s what British boxing needs as well, and those homecomings and those stars to come through. And they’ll get those opportunities, whether it’s Saudi or whatever it is at that point in time. 

“Of course, we expect to be involved and we have offers for certain fighters, it’s up to the fighters as to what fights they want.”

Shalom is fully onboard with the Saudi Arabian involvement and sees the upside of former promotional rivals now working together to put on big fights around the world.

“It’s incredible what they’re doing in the sport,” Shalom added. “And when I came in, it was a difficult time because Frank and Eddie hadn’t worked together for that long and it did affect the sport, so you have to take your hats off to Saudi and the way they’re willing to make the fights that they want. It doesn’t matter about promotional barriers. They’ve proven their promoter agnostic, they’re now doing a show with PBC in the States and they’ll just want to make the fights that they want, and that will include our fighters, when they want to make those fights. 

“We’ve not been involved, but for boxing in general it’s fantastic and you have to as a fan be very happy.”