Salta pulls no punches in securing national titles

Andrew Mathieson
GEELONG is punching above its weight in hosting Australia’s biggest boxing showpiece, according to the event’s promoter.
Moolap’s Tony Salta said some of the nation’s most promising boxers would compete in the city next week for Australian Amateur National Boxing League titles.
Mr Salta revealed he started jotting down a strategy to lure the event while waiting between fights at last year’s Australian titles.
He swapped handshakes with boxing authorities the same day to seal the deal in a private agreement.
“It took me about three hours to do,” Mr Salta said.
“I sat there and I wrote a submission on why we should have it and what I, as a promoter, could offer the Australian titles.
“They were fairly impressed and said ‘Lets go with it’.”
Mr Salta said the 2009 titles would be the first outside a capital city.
Australia’s leading 70 fighters would compete in all weight divisions at South Barwon Civic Centre.
Mr Salta was convinced Geelong could host Australia’s “best titles ever”.
He expected next Thursday’s elimination bouts to precede sell-out crowds of more than 1000 on Friday and Saturday nights.
“I’ve promoted countless amateur and also professional boxing events for the past 35 years, so I made it fairly well-known I wanted to stage the Australian titles because I believe that Geelong is a great fighting city,” he said.
“We’ve produced a few quality boys (in Geelong) and they should get the opportunity to fight for a national title in front of their own crowd – that was probably the selling point.
“We anticipated we could get eight to 10 fighters through.”