LAS VEGAS Boxer mixes sport with his religion

With a rabbi's approval, the Jewish boxer will fight tonight.
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- He keeps kosher and throws a powerful left hook. He studies the Torah and has a stiff jab. There are 70 days a year he won't fight, including holidays.
Still, 20-year-old Dmitriy Salita has found success as a welterweight boxer who is also an observant Jew.
Promoter Bob Arum ran into Salita's iron will this week as he tried to convince him to fight an undercard bout tonight before the Paulie Ayala-Erik Morales WBC featherweight title fight. But Salita wouldn't fight on the Jewish Sabbath, which lasts from twilight Friday until sundown Saturday.
"This was the first time ever I couldn't make the match myself, and I've been in the business for 37 years," Arum said Thursday. "I had to call the rabbi."
Assurance from rabbi
A Las Vegas rabbi assured Salita that he could fight at the appointed time and still be true to his faith. Sunset is to be at 5:15 p.m. Saturday, and the fight against Ron Gladden (11-6-1) of Murray, Ky., is to be at 7 p.m.
Salita (8-0 with six knockouts) is the only religious Jew in the professional ranks, according to Arum.
Salita, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., came to the United States from the Ukraine at age 9. But it wasn't until his mother was being treated for breast cancer in 1998 at a New York hospital that he discovered Judaism, from a Jewish woman rooming with his mother.
He embraced his religion -- about the same time as he embraced boxing. Slowly, Salita said, he began to observe the Sabbath and other Jewish laws. When boxing matches started to conflict with those laws, his rabbi in Brooklyn, Zalman Liberow, gave him some advice.
"Don't fight on the Sabbath and everything will be all right," Salita recalled him saying.
Salita has followed the rule ever since, and it has not held him back. He was 2001 New York Golden Gloves champion at 139 pounds and won the Sugar Ray Robinson Award, given to the outstanding boxer of the tournament. He turned pro shortly afterward. Liberow continues to advise Salita -- but only on spiritual matters.