The silver lining: lacing up for battle (an interview with Biznes Boxing Polska CEO Julian Szumowski)

There simply is nothing like training for a fight in the squared circle. And the draw has been proven yet again by Julian Szumowski and his Biznes Boxing white-collar fight nights. Following the rough COVID years, Szumowski's goal is to give every man and woman an opportunity to fight--and judging by the company's growth, he might just pull it off. In this interview with The Corners, Szumowski opines on the past, present, and a very busy future.

TC: White-collar boxing has exploded world-wide, and this seems to have grown exponentially in part due to social media boxing a la Jake Paul. I know that there is a huge white-collar fight night sector in the US and the UK, but I do not recall this having ever been popular in Poland prior to your events.

Szumowski: I believe I was the first to do white collar in Poland. My story is interesting—started it from VIP level. I had the mayor of Poznan fight against a retired Polish legend in boxing, Dariusz “Tiger” Michalczewski. And that was the first one. I started by going into very deep water. Never done it before. The mayor of Poznan put his trust in the project. Dariusz Michalczewski said he would first be at the gala, then agreed to become the opponent.

TC: That sounds like an auspicious start.

Szumowski: I just remember doing everything at the gala from riding my bike on the day of the gala to the Poznan stadium to get a t-shirt for the auction to packing gift bags to preparing the menu for the attendees. I was practically at that time a one-man army, although I did have two people helping me. That gala wound up being a huge success. We pulled it off and raised PLN 110,000 on the night for Cardio-chirugia Dziecience—this is an NGO that attempts to shorten the wait for operations for children with heart disease.

TC: How did you come up with the money to back such a large event?

Szumowski: I had no cash myself. I was a poor guy who took a big risk, but in the end I sold enough tickets to pay for the gala. This was a massive gamble. No normal businessman would have taken that risk. We had about 350 people and five fights—that’s it.

TC: But you mentioned a T-shirt to auction.

Szumowski: Yes, we also had auctions—the auctions to this day are one of the main methods we raise money for charity. We have to date raised PLN 3.5 mln for charity.

TC: But you approached celebrities and sports stars in order to get items for the auction. That sounds difficult.

Szumowski: Absolutely. But I’ve always been good at reaching out to people and connecting people—really since my teenage years. Organizing football matches, that kind of thing. In this case, it was a matter of thinking what items will be valuable for people on the night.

TC: So you immediately went from one big even to something that you could sustain?

Szumowski: No, that did not happen for four years. It took that long to become sustainable. From 2015 to 2018 I still had not figured it out. A lot of people were congratulating me and slapping me on the back, and it looks great from a PR point of view, but I was left with barely any money, and I was taking the whole risk. The charities were receiving money, but I was lost in terms of how to optimize the biz project and close to giving up. I was exhausted and tired of taking all of the risk. In 2018 I was quite close to giving up.

What changed was reaching out to a guy in England who had grown his business 100 times over, raised GBP 25 mln and had 150,000 taking part in the galas. I did this through Linkedin and it was on the third attempt that he agreed to come to Poland. He wanted his company to enter the Polish market, and we tried to do it in 2019.

TC: So 2019—which was still prior to COVID.

Szumowski: Yes, but that cooperation didn’t end up working for a number of reasons. But it helped me realize what I needed to do. Up until 2018 there had been five galas. I did two in 2016, but in other years I did one a year. Five altogether. But n 2019 I understood what I needed to do and put together a new plan.

In 2019 we did five galas. We did more than I had done in the last four years. We increased the number of fights, made the tickets cheaper and added standing tickets with the option of buying alcohol. Prior to that we were doing it all inclusive, but I then understood that people were much more willing to pay less and buy what they wanted for dinner, for example. And previously, I was not doing enough fights.
So in 2020 I was ready to double what I had done in 2019 and in March in 2020 I had four galas in one month.

TC: Five in one month?

Szumowski: Yes—we were exploding. We were supposed to work with Legia Football Club. We were supposed to put a ring on the top of a skyscraper in Gdansk. Marius Wach was supposed to fight there. He has fought twice at our galas, actually.

TC: But then COVID hit…

Szumowski: Then COVID hit and it all falls apart. Bit by bit the whole thing falls apart. Goes to shit. Just when I’m about to accelerate, things go bad. But now I think a big moment was postponing two galas to September and the start of October same year. The restrictions went up to May-June, and then we had a little opening for summer, but they closed us down again. But we managed to pull off two big galas, one on Sept. 30 and the other on Oct. 4 before Poland shut down again.

So from a financial point of view I still got a breather instead of drowning. Had we done it a week later, I would have had to give back everything.

TC: What would have happened had the shut-down forced you to cancel those events?

Szumowski: I would have been bankrupt. I would have been financially destroyed. I would have had to have given all of the money back. But the next October-through-March period—the next six months may have been shut down, but by then I knew I had the whole blueprint. I knew what needed to take place. From that point on I was almost a sprinter at the line waiting for the shotgun.

During the summer of 2021 I entered Krakow, which was a new market, and we did Warsaw and Poznan again, as well as Gdansk. From May 21 up until October or Nov 21 we set about building a team of people. We did 10 galas—we literally doubled the number of what we had ever done in a COVID year. I employed a girl who had experience organizing weddings and who was a former kick-boxing champ, and she was a game changer. She’s organized seven or eight galas since.

In the end we did 20 galas in 2022 and ended up entering new cities like Wroclaw, Katowice and Krakow.

We will have 20 this year, and I would say now the goal is not necessarily to have more, but instead we want to have bigger galas. We would like to enter sports arenas. We do not necessarily want to do more events. My goal is to do more B2B. We want companies to recognize they can have a Christmas event at our gala, for example.

We’re saying if you want to integrate, this is the way to do it. You will have a great time--nominate someone from your company to fight. Participating, giving something to the auctions, etc.--this connects employees. It activates them to get physically involved—and to get into shape. It’s great for health. In the end it’s a great celebration

TC: You yourself recently fought—great fight by the way, but what was the story there?

Szumowski: I was supposed to fight earlier but I tore my bicep in November. I had worked hard and was ready in November and was supposed to fight Lukasz Wolski. We both challenged each other. But two weeks out I was sparring with a very physical guy. I started to get inflammation in my right hand felt pain in my right hand, but it turned out that I had torn my bicep, and on the night of the gala I was summoned from surgery. All the people in my room. Other patients—first snow. Everyone had leg injuries. I was the only one with an arm injury.

Lukasz fought someone else. He won his fight, by the way. I recovered, and this was a case of getting back on the horse. This time Lukasz was out, as he has gotten into triathlons so I challenged Pawel Jozwiak to a match. He is the founder of second biggest white-collar fight organization. So it was prezes contra prezes in the same sector. I had a month to prepare. I felt like a moth was enough. But the fight--dealing with the pressure, the emotions, it was a challenge.

He put up a fight. He walked into my shots and never took a step back. I hit him three for four times where I thought I should have hurt him.

Had I taken the same shots, my face would have been messed up. But we kept it in gentleman terms pre-fight and post-fight. He went on to fight in a Freak Fight. Freak Fighting has changed the MMA scene, as these have generated unreal amounts. These are fights between internet stars. Jozwiak won his fight, and he sent me a message that our fight had helped him prepare.

Anyway, it was a great experience. We have had famous politicians fight, famous boxers. Famous MMA stars also take part in the auction, and we are looking to continue the expansion. My mission statement get every man and woman to experience a fight, get them fit and training. Just experience one fight in a lifetime.

TC: That’s quite a mission statement.

Szumowski: Yes, but right now we have 300 to 400 fighters preparing to experience their first ever fight in the ring. We are also about to start a big recruitment process. We have 10 galas coming in the next three months.

So we are on our way.

Photo, courtesy Julian Szumowski/Biznes Boxing Polska