Taking control in the second round, Alicia Ashley won an
unanimous eight round decision over a determined, but
outclassed, Crystal Hoy in a super featherweight bout at the
top of a fast paced five bout card, Wednesday
night, promoted by Maureen Shea's Pandora Promotions in
association with Global Boxing, at the Brooklyn Masonic
Temple in the Fort Greene section of the borough.
Hoy and Ashley, at matching weights of 121, came out firing
in the first round with Hoy's aggressive pursuit of the
quicker Ashley earning her the nod on the cards of two of
the three judges. From that point on, however, the night's
main event took on a familiar, almost metronomic, pattern
for the next seven rounds.
Ashley, fighting from her customary southpaw stance and
utilizing both her hand and foot speed, potshotted Hoy with
solid lead right jabs and straight lefts, moving in and out
against her slower opponent. (It should be stipulated here
that being described as slower, in the ring, than Alicia
Ashley is a label that covers the vast majority of female
bantam and featherweight fighters in the sport.)
To this strategy Ashley added her uncanny ability to land
effective punches, with both hands, while on the move,
side/side and, most uniquely, moving backwards. The tactics
caused Hoy, who remained, come-forward aggressive throughout
the bout, to try, but, frustratingly, fail to trap the
elusive Ashley against the ropes or in the corners. The
eighth round differed from rounds two through seven only in
the fact that Ashley scored a flash knockdown in the first
minute of the stanza, making it a 10-8 round and breaking a
string of 10-9 tallies for the winner. Judge Robert Taylor
saw the fight 80-71, giving all eight rounds to Ashley,
while judges Luis Rivera and Robert Perez concurred on a
79-72 count.
The forty-three year old Ashley moved her record to 16-9-1
while positioning herself squarely in line for another shot
at the WBC super bantamweight title which she lost, on a
razor thin decision, to Marcela Acuna in August 2009, in
Argentina. The thoroughly game Hoy, who turned in a
never-stop-trying effort against one of the elite boxers in
the sport, fell to 5-4-3.
