The series, due to air on March 14, features 16 amateur boxers, who are mentored by 'Rocky' and 'Rambo' star Stallone and former boxer Sugar Ray Leonard as they compete for a $1m (£520,000) prize.
ITV will run 10- and 30-second promotional spots, featuring Stallone and Leonard, across channels including Sky One, Sky Sports, Living, UKTV Gold and MTV's portfolio of channels from March 3.
The campaign was planned and bought by Starcom Motive and created by ITV's Network Promotions Unit.
The network is ploughing £400,000 into promoting the 13-part series, the "biggest ever marketing investment in one show," an ITV spokeswoman confirmed.
Clare Salmon, marketing director for ITV2, said: "2005 is the year for ITV2, with its increasing reputation for exciting and new programming its only right to show multi-channel viewers what they could be missing out on."
The news, even to broadcast the series, comes as a 23-year-old contestant on 'The Contender' killed himself two weeks ago.
Najai Turpin shot himself in front of his girlfriend just before the programme was due to air in the US. At the time there was speculation that the series would not air, out of respect to Turpin's family, and an ITV spokeswoman could not confirmed whether the network was planning to broadcast the series.
However, NBC said it would go ahead with the show as planned.
"Nothing changes. I'm not even going to make any edits because it's real," said Mark Burnett of Mark Burnett Productions, one of the co-producers of the series.
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