You might have seen fighters arguing with each other, but it appears even their promoters want to get in on the action. You see, before the Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Kamil Szeremeta fight last Saturday, Boxxer head Ben Shalom and Queensberry honcho Frank Warren got into a scuffle during the final face for the fight. 

As Eubank Jr. and Szeremeta came face-to-face, Shalom went ahead, cutting off Warren from the left to stand in the middle of the two boxers. While doing so, Shalom may have even stepped on Frank Warren unintentionally. This seems to have really irritated Warren, who took up the issue with Shalom right on the stage, with cameras capturing the entire argument. Fast forward to today, Warren appeared in an interview with Box Nation to share his thoughts on what happened.

He began by recollecting what the week leading up to the fight was like with Shalom, involved in it. “All you got from him all week was ‘Where am I sitting? Am I on the camera side of the TV?’ Sending contracts through, ‘I must be in the middle of the photograph. I don’t want Eddie Hearn in a photograph with my fighter,’” Warren explained, expressing his frustration. 

Turning to what he said to Shalom after the incident during the face-off, the Queensberry head suggested the event is about the boxers and not about appearing on TV. He claimed that he told Shalom not to do that again, adding, “Had he done it [again], I would’ve [physically] thrown him off the stage. He was just so disrespectful to everybody. Everybody had enough of him.”

It’s worth mentioning that Shalom had gotten himself into a similar situation with promoter Eddie Hearn a while back during the Anthony Joshua vs. Daniel Dubois face-off. Similar to this situation, Joshua Buatsi and Willy Hutchinson were facing off while Shalom, Warren, and Hearn were present on the stage. 

Shalom revealed that he had made a joke about the Matchroom Boxing head being front and center, even though there weren’t any boxers from his promotion. This caused a tense exchange between them, where Shalom claimed Hearn had threatened to knock him out, which Hearn later confirmed he did.

Regardless, since Shalom’s scuffle with Warren in the Beterbiev vs. Bivol face-off, Shalom has shared his side of the story.

Ben Shalom on the altercation with Frank Warren

As far as Shalom was concerned, the issue was his presence on the stage, especially because he chose to stand alongside his fighter. The Boxxer head told Boxing King Media, “I’ve been blocked from being around my fighters all week and going on stage.” Shalom added that he respects the role other promoters play for their fighter, and all he did was the same. 

“I think the anger was I didn’t just stand on the side and let them be with my fighters [and] pretend I don’t exist,” he said. Shalom seemed surprised by the way Warren reacted to the situation, adding, “If that was my grandad, I’d be telling him to calm down…his blood pressure must be through the roof.”

That being said, Frank Warren and Ben Shalom have never actually been friends. While that could be said about Warren and Eddie Hearn as well, who merely came together because of His Excellency Turki Alalshaikh, Shalom seems to have gotten the worst end of the stick as he tries to make a place for himself among these heavy hitters. What are your thoughts on the matter?