Dimitriy Who?

It seems as though it is the time for Jewish fighters to come to the fore. On November 14 in Las Vegas, Yuri Foreman easily outpointed champion Daniel Santos to win the WBA light-middleweight title. Now, less than a month later, Dimitriy Salita is aiming to make it a double for those following the Jewish faith as he challenges Amir Khan for the WBA light-welterweight title.

 

There are similarities and differences in the routes that Yuri and Dimitriy have taken to get where they are. They were both born in countries that once formed part of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, in Yuri’s case Belarus, and for Dimitriy, Ukraine.

 

Yuri then moved to Israel, representing them in the World Junior championships, before ending up in the USA whereas Dimitriy went directly from Ukraine to the United States.

 

They both started their boxing in the USA and both had some degree of success as amateurs, both winning medals in the New York Golden Gloves, and both turned pro in New York with Dimitriy turning pro in June 2001 and Yuri following exactly seven months to the day afterwards. There is another similarity, but I will come to that later.

 

Dimitriy was born in Odessa on April 4, 1982 and it has been well documented that life for Dimitriy and his family it was pretty tough in Ukraine with a degree of religious discrimination making both work and education difficult and making life occasionally dangerous enough for Dimitriy’s father to feel he needed to have a gun ready at home.

 

Finally his father decided to take his family, his wife Lyudmila, Dimitriy and his elder son, to New York to start a new life. Even that was not easy for a nine-year-old Dimitriy. Being both the new kid in the school and the neighbourhood, and different in many ways from those around him, he had a tough time. It follows that trouble was not difficult to find and his school life featured a fair share of scraps and scrapes.

 

Before moving to the USA Dimitriy had not been a devoted follower of his religion, but the death of Lyudmila from cancer drew him towards Orthodox Judaism and he became committed to the faith, a regular synagogue attendee, and a strict follower of Jewish law. As a result he observes the Sabbath and will not fight before sundown on a Saturday.

 

About the same time as his religious conviction grew it also became obvious that it was necessary for him to learn how to fight due to his scraps in school and on the streets. To begin with he tried karate, but eventually his brother introduced him to the gym, and to boxing.

 

He joined the Starrett City Boxing Club in Brooklyn, being one of the few white faces there, but he persevered and eventually gained the respect of the mainly black and Hispanic crowd who used the gym, and he started boxing when he was 13 years old.

 

In 1998 he competed in the US Under-19 championships at 132lbs, losing in the semi- final to Don Holguin. He was back in June the following year and went a stage further, this time taking the silver medal after a defeat by Jose Celaya in the final up at 139lbs. In September he made his appearance at the Police Athletic League championships as a senior, again at 139lbs, losing in the third round to James Countryman.

He finally reached gold medal standard at the 2000 US Under-19 championships beating Ray Sanchez in the 139lbs final and also finished runner-up in the New York Golden Gloves that year.

 

He closed out his time as an amateur by winning the New York Golden Gloves title in 2001, beating Joey Rios and winning the Sugar Ray Robinson trophy, and turned professional in June that year, scoring first round wins in each of his first two fights.

 

In his early career he was under the promotional banner of Top Rank, fighting mainly in Las Vegas and the West Coast, but when his contract with Bob Arum expired, he signed with Lou Di Bella and then became a regular on the East Coast circuit.

 

His opposition has been carefully selected, but even then it has not been a smooth ride. Dimitriy seems to have a first round complex. In December 2005 Robert Frankel had him on the floor in the first round, but Dimitriy recovered to win a comfortable unanimous points verdict.

 

However, the Salita train almost came off the rails in his next fight in New York in March 2006. With 24 wins behind him, Dimitriy looked a safe bet against Mexican Ramon Montano, who had a 10-3-1, 1 no decision record, but was no puncher and had never won a fight inside the distance. A shocked Dimitriy once again found himself on the canvas in the first round, but this time it was worse as he was down twice in the round and nearly stopped. He was rocked again in the fifth, but managed to salvage a controversial draw to retain his unbeaten record.

 

It is typical of the WBA rankings that they had Dimitriy at No 1, ahead of Manny Pacquiao! This despite the fact that in his 31 fights Dimitriy has never faced a rated opponent or even one that could loosely be described as top flight. There is no Breidis Prescott or Andreas Kotelnik in there.

 

However that is not necessarily a reliable indication, as, returning to the similarity theme, the same could be said for Yuri Foreman before he challenged Daniel Santos.

 

“The Star of David”, as Dimitriy is known, is still only 27 and essentially an untested fighter who has shown both ability and frailty. It remains to be seen which of those Jekyll and Hyde characters turns up in Newcastle on December 5.