In 2003–2004, Kaddour fought 4 out of 5 fights in the USA, the other in Germany, against opponents with winning records and won 3 of the 4 USA fights by stoppage, and was very confident at 18-0 when selected to participate on the reality TV show "The Contender", broadcast worldwide, and was placed on the East Coast team. While on the team, he got involved in a feud with Ishe Smith early on and they fought in the 3rd match. At the time Smith was world ranked by all 4 sanctioning organizations and held the USBA, the NABO, and the WBC Continental Americas titles. Kaddour gunned for an early KO but Smith weathered the storm and won by unanimous decision, calling it a "tough fight" afterwards. Kaddour was voted back into the quarterfinals after Juan de la Rosa pulled out – a tactic by Jesse Brinkley, Anthony Bonsante, Peter Manfredo, and Joey Gilbert designed to get under Smith's skin. The week after Smith lost a split decision to eventual Contender and WBC champion Sergio Mora, Ahmad was matched with Alfonso Gomez (who went on after the show to challenge for the WBA 147 lb and WBC 154 lb titles) by the same boxers who brought Kaddour back, with the hope that the two tough fighters would battle hard and the winner would be less ready for the semi-finals. Kaddour beat Gomez's face badly (Gomez pointed to his face in a post fight interview saying this was his sacrifice) and came away relatively unscathed himself, even knocking Gomez backwards in the 4th, and buckling Gomez's legs and sending him 3 steps back into the ropes in the last round, but Gomez was busier overall and Kaddour lost by 1 round on 1 card and 3 rounds on the other 2 cards. Kaddour claimed that he would be back and wished Alfonso the best.