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Not Your Typical Puligist: Dmitry Salita Stars in Award Winning Documentary
MON January 19, JAMES STILLERMAN - The highly acclaimed documentary, 'Orthodox Stance' was released on January 13th by IndiePixFilms allowing the rest of the world to get an inside look at Dmitriy Salita, 29-0-1, 16KOs, a twenty-six year old Russian immigrant who's currently climbing up the boxing ranks in the light welterweight division as well as living by the strict orthodox Jewish faith.
Jason Hutt, who has worked on movies like 'Hardball' and 'Summer Catch', directed this award winning documentary that has received rave reviews from numerous media outlets including a critics pick by the New York Times and the New York Magazine. It was also an Official Selection at the prestigious 2007 Silverdocs Festival and the 2007 Sarasota and San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
Recently I spoke with Salita about starring in this documentary and he said, “This has gotten great press reviews which is good because boxing doesn`t have enough crossover appeal and the media attention this documentary garners is helping the sport get the attention it deserves. It's also gives me exposure to the media which will hopefully translate into bigger and better fights for myself in the future.”
'Orthodox Stance' is one of the first boxing documentaries that provides its viewers with unique behind the scenes footage of Salita's life spanning three years. The documentary follows Salita from his training, weigh-ins, business negotiations, and fights to him practicing his Jewish faith, praying, reading the Torah, keeping kosher, and observing the Sabbath. Throughout the documentary, viewers see Salita’s life through many different people`s points of view including his Rabbi, Zalman Liberov and his trainer and manger, Jimmy O`Pharrow demonstrating how Salita`s Jewish faith and boxing are interconnected throughout his life.
“Hutt did a great job over the last three years at becoming part of my team and covering my life through all of my triumphs and tribulations in and out of the boxing ring,” said Salita. “He revealed many things about my life that the media would never been privy to which allows me to show who I really am to the rest of the world.”
Salita has closely shaved red hair on top of his imposing white muscular five feet nine inch frame and yet despite his intimidating presents in the ring he`s an extremely polite and humble person outside of it. He`s an orthodox pugilist in the 140 pound weight class and has great fighting abilities which includes crisp punches, lighting like hand speed, a relentless offense, and an impenetrable defense. These assets have garnered Salita an undefeated record over the last seven years that spans thirty bouts, 53% of which were knockout victories. He`s ranked number three by the WBA and number fifteen by the IBF.
Salitas boxing odyssey began when his parents Aleksander Lekhman and Lyudmilia Salita moved to Flatbush Brooklyn, New York in order to give their children (Dmitry and Mikhail) the best chance at having successful futures as well as to escape the religious persecution they faced in Odessa, Ukraine where Salita grew up.
It was an extremely difficult life for Salita when he was younger since he and his family were living on welfare and he got picked on a lot for wearing Russian clothes and not speaking English as well as the other children. This propagated Salita to defend himself by fighting on numerous of occasions which got him into a great deal of trouble.
Salita said, “When I was younger I got into boxing because it was a way to relieve myself from all of the frustration and pain I experienced in life especially when I lost my mom in January 1999 after she succumbed to breast cancer after a two year battle. In addition, I saw boxing as a way out of the poor social economic situation that I grew up in.”
Salita garnered an impressive 54-5 record as an amateur fighter that began when he was thirteen years old at the Starrett City Boxing Club in East New York which O'Pharrow ran. When Salita was sixteen years old, he won a bronze medal at the US Junior Olympics. In 2001, he won the New York City Golden Gloves at 139 pounds when he defeated Joey Rios in the finals, 3-2. He also won the Sugar Ray Robinson award for the best fighter in the tournament. After accomplishing almost everything possible as an amateur, Salita turned pro in the summer of 2001 at the age of nineteen.
Despite all of Salita's boxing success, he never lost touch with his Jewish roots as a member of Chabad, the largest Hasidic movement in orthodox Judaism. When he signed his first promotional deal with Las Vegas promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, he had a stipulation in his contract stating that fights on the Sabbath or on the more than the seventy Jewish holidays would not be allowed. This was one of the first requests of its kind by a professional athlete.
“The thing that I`m the proudest about 'Orthodox Stance' is that it revealed that my Jewish faith is extremely important to me because it helps make me be a better person which will allow me to help others,” said Salita. “This is why my nickname is “The Star of David” which enables me to pay homage to my Jewish faith.”
Salita went on, “The thing that I`m also satisfied with this documentary is how Hutt captured everything in the momentum, which allows all of these memorable memories to come back to life instead of becoming distance memories.”
One of those memorable moments came at the end of the documentary when Salita won his twenty-second bout and the NABA light welterweight belt, his first major strap of his professional career. The victory came against Shaw Gallegos via a ninth round knockout on August 25, 2005 in front of his home town fans in Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.
Since the completion of 'Orthodox Stance', Salita has gone 7-0 including 2-0 this past year by registering a fifth round technical knockout over Fabian Luque in February and then on the under card of the Joe Calzaghe-Roy Jones Jr. fight in November, he garnered a unanimous decision over Derrick Campus to win the vacant IBF intercontinental light welterweight belt, his second strap. In spite of Salita`s boxing accomplishments there are still more goals to achieve including fighting in a world title bout.
“As a professional boxer I've not gotten the opportunities I`d have liked. I`ve won two minor titles, but I`ve never fought for a world title despite going undefeated for seven years,” said Salita. “It`s extremely frustrating for me because I feel I`m the best fighter in the world and I`ve yet to have the opportunity to prove to the rest of the world that I`m the best.”
Hopefully 2009 will finally be the year that Salita gets his long awaited world title shot (maybe against Andreas Kotelnik the WBA champion where Salita is the number one contender) and becomes the first Jewish boxer to win a world title since Mike Rossman won the WBA light heavyweight belt in 1978.
'Orthodox Stance' is only $24.95 and is 82 minutes long plus extras. The documentary is available wherever DVDs are sold. For additional information on Dmitry Salita or on the documentary visit Orthodox Stance: Official Film Website: www.orthodoxstance.com, IndiePix Home Page: www.indiepixfilms.com or Dmitry Salita: The pugilist’s official website: www.dsalitia.com.
A special thanks goes to Eva Damore for facilitating the interview and to Dmitry Salita for taking the time out of his busy schedule to allow me to interview him. Photo credit: David Lincoln.
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