'Boxing's like a cult' - meet the new promoter hitting the big stage

Terri Harper v Natalie Zimmermann - WBO lightweight title

Venue: Eco-Power Stadium, Doncaster Date: Friday, 23 May

Coverage: Follow live text commentary from 20:00 BST on BBC Sport website & app

Izzy Asif exudes the same levels of confidence as any established boxing promoter.

"I can talk the talk with whoever I need to talk to," he boasts. "I can make business deals and then roll with the street guys."

But it's never easy being the new kid on the block.

The Sheffield-born GBM boss outlined his plans to become a boxing powerhouse when he promoted his first show in March 2022. His ambition was met with raised eyebrows.

"Boxing promotion is a cult - it is so hard to break through," he adds.

"I said I was in this business to be the best - everyone just looked at me as if to say 'who the hell is this British-Pakistani guy?'"

On Friday, GBM will host its first world-title fight when Terri Harper defends her WBO lightweight title against Natalie Zimmermann in front of an expected 8,000 fans at Doncaster's Eco-Power Stadium.

With TV and radio broadcast deals and another stadium event scheduled in Ireland next month, GBM has enjoyed a rapid rise from small hall shows in Yorkshire.

Speaking to BBC Sport, Asif shares his journey from hustling football tickets on Sheffield's terraces to a businessman looking to disrupt the British boxing scene.

Asif, 42, and his family emigrated to Britain from the mountainous Kahuta region of Rawalpindi, the same area former world champion Amir Khan, now retired, and unbeaten super-middleweight Hamzah Sheeraz's families are from. "There must be something in the water," Asif says.

With his grandfather toiling away in Sheffield steel factories, the first decade of Asif's life was spent sharing a five-bedroom house with 24 members of his extended family.

"There were five or six of us in a room," he recalls.

Searching for an identity, to feel a part of a group, Asif fell in love with football aged 14. Today, he holds a corporate box at Sheffield United - but in mid 1990s he attended matches at Bramall Lane without the approval of his father.

"My dad would say football is full of racists. He was a taxi driver and all he heard was the p-word, being told to go back home," Asif says.

"He was one of the abiding generations who didn't want any trouble, kept their head down and accepted it."

Asif got involved with "the wrong type of people" on the terraces and was thrown out of college after a confrontation with a teacher.

But sport provided the defiant youth with an outlet. Asif spent his childhood playing cricket, featuring alongside future England skipper Joe Root for the renowned Sheffield Collegiate team.

Then in 2002 he discovered boxing and the 6ft 4in cruiserweight would go on to make his professional debut before retiring in 2012.

Asif's entrepreneurial spirit can be dated to his early teenage years, selling tickets for Blades' games.

But it was the death of his younger brother from leukaemia in 2005 which forever changed his life.

"We were told my brother wouldn't make it on a Monday and he was gone by Wednesday," Asif says as his voice begins to break.

"He was like a son to me. I was 23 at the time, he was 12. It knocked the life out of me. From then on, I promised my dad - who was heartbroken beyond belief - that he would never have to work again."

Asif speaks at length about his working-class background and reflects on a time when he couldn't even afford petrol for his car.

His business fortunes changed when he took a punt on a house at a property auction.

"I shook hands on a £28,000 house with £3 in my pocket. I borrowed, sold a car and moved back in with my parents to make it work," Asif says.

While Asif built a business empire through his property profile, he coached at a community boxing gym.

In 2019, he received a call from Amir Khan to help train the former world champion for his fight with Billy Dib.

That taste of the big stage lit a fire.

Not one to ever downplay his contribution, Asif says he "ran the show" in Saudi Arabia.

"Lennox Lewis told me I had a knack for this promoting business," he adds.

Asif gained a British Boxing Board of Control manager's licence but soon realised he could be more.

So began GBM. Asif acknowledges there are questions from some insiders about both him and the promotion company's meteoric growth.

"I'm a risk-taker who has a knack for building businesses from scratch," he says. "I've invested in a care home and property businesses which have earned me a very comfortable living.

"I've worked non-stop day and night. You can find me putting out chairs at the start of shows and doing whatever it takes to succeed."

Asif believes his in-ring experience makes him stand out. "How many other British promoters can say they got punched in the face for a living?", he says.

But after small hall promoter beginnings, he has his eyes firmly on joining the likes of Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren at boxing's top table.

"If they gave me the same money as Eddie right now, I'd be a serious powerhouse in this country," he says.

In true Asif fashion, he continues to talk a big game and dream even bigger.

He feels it could just take one event - one headline fight which captures a big sporting audience - to make GBM a serious player in British boxing.

BBC Sport understands conversations have previously taken place for GBM to promote the grudge rematch between former world champion Billy Joe Saunders and bitter rival Chris Eubank Jr.

"It's very realistic," Asif says of the possibility. "In the meantime, I'll keep pushing, building the fighters, our reputation, our brand and giving the fighters the good deals."