Alicia Ashley is The fountain of youth in Boxing

Alicia Ashley who’s the most mature boxer to win a world title at forty eight, beating out Bernard Hopkins by about three weeks,  says there’s no magic  to the fountain of youth, rather the less you get get clocked, the more time you’ve got left on the clock.

The slick southpaw and former WBC super bantamweight championess who had a career spanning twenty two years, looked after herself.b She’s now a boxing trainer and teacher in China.

At the WBC’s third Women’s Convention in Manila she confided via her so characteristic calmness,  she’s contradicting the notion that fighting someone in their twenties, in your early fifties is a mission impossible, stressing: “in the last fight I did in March, I outlasted someone half my age.

“That’s really not the point. It’s more to do with how you train.  You really have to train for your age. For this I didn’t do the long runs and three hours in the gym that I used to in my twenties.  For me, the secret is not to get hit. Let’s say I didn’t take the same amount of punishment other boxers do.

“My style is a boxer’s style, which is slick and it means don’t get hit. I move around so much, even from the amateurs that  I was not   hurt. I continued that in training and sparring.”

Turning to this event, Alicia said: “We definitely need these Conventions. It’s not from the bottom you are going to change Boxing, it’s from the top. You have to have the sanctioning body and the promoters. If you can’t get that to change, we’re not going to flourish.  So, this is a very important aspect of it.”