BEN SHALOM’S first foray into boxing promotion started on the shop floor of an unused estate agent in Cheetham Hill, a short walk up the road from Strangeways.
His days then consisted of trying to make a mark in the sport while also turning away the people who knocked on the window to ask if he had any short-term lets available on greater-Manchester maisonettes.
Now, after just turning 30 and moving down to London on a permanent basis, Shalom is the head of a promotional company with more than 30 full-time staff and an office in Hammersmith. It has been a meteoric rise for a man whose ability in the business is still questioned by fellow promoters.
In some ways, it has been a grim year for Shalom and Boxxer who have lost five main events to injury, three of which were pay-per-view. It has been suggested that the ‘Boxxer Curse’ is up for inclusion in the 2024 Oxford English Dictionary.
But he has to stifle a laugh when it is suggested that he might have backed the wrong horse when he chose this path in the sport, given the difficulty he has faced over the past 12 months, most recently with the postponement of Joshua Buatsi and Dan Azeez.
“This now, this is the fun bit,” he says of life as Boxxer’s head honcho. “I started this business with nothing but what I have to deal with now is nothing like what I had to deal with in the first three or four years. There are a lot more challenges in that position I can promise you that.
“To see where it has come from to where it is now is crazy. We were two men in an estate agent that we weren’t paying rent on in Cheetham Hill. The estate agent had folded so we just went into the front of the shop. People used to come past, knocking on the window, my mates used to take pictures of us sat there in the shop.
“Now we’ve had to move to London because it’s scaled to such a point. We are well set up for the future. Compared to where we were, this is amazing so when times are tough I remind myself of that. I’ve been on a great journey.”
The loss of Buatsi-Azeez was a particularly painful one, given its juxtaposition with one of Shalom and Boxxer’s most significant deals to date, which was announced a day before. That was the confirmation of what was hailed as a ‘landmark media rights partnership’ with American broadcasting behemoth NBC which would mean multiple Boxxer shows would be streamed on their Peacock platform.
The first of the fight nights provided to those 25 million subscribers was set to be the London derby between Buatsi and Azeez until a back injury to the latter forced the delay.
“Imagine this,” Shalom says. “We worked so long on that deal and we finally get it over the line. We think, first fight, Buatsi-Azeez, brilliant, this is going to be special.
“We announce it on the Monday and by Tuesday I’m making a call saying ‘it’s off – welcome back to boxing’. They know why they left and they were reminded straight away.
“It has been a tough few months which started with Taylor-Catterall then Smith-Eubank, Adam Azim and Ben Whittaker. Our stars have been getting injured.
“But, even so, bigger picture, that deal was a milestone for the business. One thing I always struggled with was getting our fighters US exposure and building them properly. We’ve seen the success of people like Amir Khan, Tyson Fury and Naseem Hamed over there, British fighters have made their name in the US. It’s a special deal for us.”
It is the second of two major deals Shalom has landed, following on from the 2021 agreement with Sky, in the wake of Eddie Hearn’s decision to take his Matchroom stable to DAZN on a permanent basis.
Shortly after it was confirmed that Shalom would have the keys to the kingdom, he sat down with Boxing News to discuss his plans for the future. He was widely positive and forward-thinking back then, he spoke of his desire to freshen up the boxing experience for consumers and, above all, about his desire to forge strong working relationships with his rival promoters. But boxing has a funny way of beating such positivity out of a newcomer like Shalom.
“I have been hardened to it,” Shalom admits. “What I’ve realised is that you can’t change the world in a day. For us to get any influence in the sport we have to have a strong broadcast deal, a great stable, good relationship with governing bodies and a business to be able to affect change. There are stepping stones.
“Going back to that interview in 2021, what I believed then is still what drives me now. It makes me want to stay in the sport and it makes me love this sport and drives our whole business.
“When we got the Sky deal we didn’t have a stable. We had to start from scratch, that took convincing the Olympians to sign with us, it took convincing world champions to come across, it took building what we believe is the best female stable. All of that takes time.
“But we feel like we’ve learned a lot this year and there have been things we wish we could go back and change but we can’t. We are even more hungry and aware of what we want to achieve.”
A milestone like turning 30 can often bring life choices and long-term goals into sharper view. Shalom, however, in spite of the challenges he has faced so far, is adamant he has not backed the wrong horse.
“Turning 30 just made me think ‘wow, what a whirlwind my 20s were’,” he adds. “Some of the experiences I’ve had are incredible. I’m working in a sport that I love and we are at the pinnacle of it, which comes with challenges.
“We are breaking into an industry that doesn’t allow people to break in. I’m very proud of what we’ve done in the past five-10 years and really we are only getting started.”
Cheetham Hill has never seemed so far away.
