“Hey it is you! You photographed my wedding,” yelled Tarick Salmaci from inside his white Caddy, where I was meeting him at Starbucks in West Dearborn.

Tarick Salmaci

“Can you believe it has been twelve years since I got married?” he added as he walked toward me. He stopped and chatted with a friend passing in his car, and as he sits down another lady walking by says: “Hi Tarick, I know you from Facebook.”

Facebook seems to be the new buzz in the community, and if you check Tarick’s page you see his popularity: he boasts over 1450 friends from everyday people to boxing champs, singers and actors and all-time legends like Julie Andrews, Jerry Seinfeld and Denzel Washington, mostly from his stint on the reality television series The Contender.

“It is all good for the ego, but you can’t let it get to your head. You have to stay humble and keep it real,” Salmaci said. “In fact you have to control your ego, and not let it get the best of you.”

A story has been running on CNN on the high number of suicides among reality show participants. Many people can’t cope with going from obscurity to fame, and back to obscurity. In fact one of the boxers in The Contender, Najai Turpin, shot himself in the head while sitting with his girlfriend outside the gym in Philadelphia, while The Contender was being edited before it aired for fifteen weeks through 2005 on NBC.

“I don’t think Turpin’s suicide had anything to do with the show, or because he lost… He just had too many personal problems that he didn’t know how to deal with,” Salmaci said. And he went on to explain how to qualify for The Contender they had to go through I.Q. tests, thorough psychiatric analysis and personality profiles, which explains why it was the highest cost reality show ever produced, costing NBC an average of two million dollars an episode.

“It is different for The Contender participants,” Salmaci explained. “As boxers we’re exposed to fame, and being on the show opened up doors for us and opportunities that otherwise, we wouldn’t have had.”

The story of how Salmaci got involved with the show is quite interesting. He had been retired from boxing for three years and he got a phone call from his manager telling him that Sylvester Stalone and Sugar Ray Leonard were going to be in Detroit prospecting for contestants in a reality show called The Contender and that he should go try out. Reluctantly, he went to the Pontchartrain Hotel, in Detroit, where they were holding the interviews.

“They wanted me to get in the ring and box right away,” said Salmaci. “But I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t even have my gloves, and I told them to give me time to prepare, so they said OK come back tomorrow.”

“I was out of practice, but you know how it is, it is like riding a bike, and once I got in the ring my instincts took over, and they liked my style,” he said.

He had to make a videotape about his family and his life and why he deserved to be in the show. “The most emotional moment for me was when I was invited to the conference room and there were all the big executives, and Stallone with his unique voice says to me “Welcome to The Contender, you’ve made the final cut!” Said Salmaci, getting emotional, “It is very hard to describe the feeling, but it is like you’re finally vindicated.” Though Salmaci ranked 4th world-wide in his weight class in the prime of his boxing career, he never had his shot at the title because a scheduled fight had to be canceled due to injury, and now he was getting a late break.

“It is better to get it late than never,” he said, “because you will always wonder, what if?” And he goes on to explain how he felt his participation in The Contender was more important to him than winning a world championship.

“Despite the early elimination, it still made me more popular than if I had won a world championship,” he says. “I didn’t realize how big the show was until I was invited to the final episode airing live in Vegas. When I arrived I was assigned a personal bodyguard… I was in ringside seating and I saw Justin Timberlake. I walked up to him and extended my hand to introduce myself and he says: ‘Hi Tarick, I know who you are…’ like he’d known me forever. Then I feel somebody tapping me on my shoulder. I turn, and a lady says ‘Hi Tarick, I am Cameron Diaz, Justin’s girlfriend!'” With his characteristic laugh Salmaci exclaimed: “It’s crazy, everybody knows you.”

And as if on cue, four people showed up from nowhere, all greeting Salmaci, one of whom was the local Arab comedian known as “Ali the Cribb’s guy.” The contender aired all over the world in England, Europe and Australia, which made Salmaci an international celebrity, but he is proud of his local roots.

“My family is here, my business in real estate, American Realty Group, is here, my friends are here, this is where I belong,” he said as he settled back in his seat from posing with friends. “I want to use my contacts to bring the world to Dearborn,” said Salmaci as he explained how he’s working with a producer to do a reality show about the lives of Arab Americans, and is trying to launch a management company to manage young boxers. “I want the community to benefit from my contacts and experience,” he added.

Salmaci believes his strong belief in the Almighty is what is guiding his life, and has protected him from harm in the ring. He states without hesitation that his daughter Ava is the most valuable thing to him, and that he’s retired as a boxer, though he still gets offers to box. “I’ve lost the passion for boxing, after The Contender, even though I knew at age eight, the first time I ever put on the gloves, that all I wanted to be was a boxer.”

For those who think Salmaci is a “washed-up-has-been” he says: “I am only getting started.”

You can take the boxer out of the fight, but you cannot take the fight out of the boxer.