Lisa Brown W10 Alicia Ashley... Alicia "Slick" Ashley seemingly outboxed IFBA junior featherweight belt holder Lisa "Bad News" Brown over ten rounds at Mohegan Sun Casino Thursday night. However, the judges favored the lady chugging forward over Ashley, who kept Brown at bay most of the night. Two judges scored it 97-93 for Brown while the third judge had it 96-94 for Ashley. There is a difference between aggression and effective aggression. Judges are supposed to award effective aggression. Brown may have been the one advancing forward but she was not all that effective. Ashley usually kept her at the end of her punches. When Brown lunged forward, Ashley gave her angles and popped her with a shot or two. On the few occasions when Brown did close the gap she wasn’t much of a terror, partly because Ashley never stood in one spot too long to be a punching bag for Brown.

Ashley, who should have walked out of the ring the new champion, seemed to handle losing the decision pretty well. She wondered if she should have taken a more aggressive approach to win over the judges.  "I was making her miss but then I’m hitting her with one shot and moving back," said Ashley. "Maybe if I dominated by hitting her with four or five punches and then moving away they, a lot of the audience was thinking I was running but I wasn’t running." Ashley, a former WIBF bantamweight champion, fell to 14-8-1 while Brown raised her record to 15-3-3.

Melinda Cooper W10 Donna Biggers... Melinda Cooper, a former WIBA and IBA flyweight champion, extended her perfect record to 19-0 with 11 KOs with a fourth-round TKO of Donna Biggers, who saw her ledger dip to 19-8 with 6 KOs. The official time of the stoppage was 1:44.

When the bout began it was Biggers who threw the first punches - three or four jabs - but soon after Cooper began tattooing Biggers with leather from all angles. Before the second round was over, Biggers had two black eyes. Cooper, a very polished boxer, was able to repeatedly tag Biggers without taking much in return. By the end of the third frame, Biggers’ left eye was looking noticeably worse than her right eye. Ironically, Biggers’ best round was probably the fourth frame, the round in which she got stopped. She was able to get off some good shots early on, before Cooper turned things up a notch and dealt Biggers a beating along the ropes. Referee Dick Flaherty had seen enough and jumped in and called a halt to the action.

Cooper, who hasn’t had a crack at a title since 2005, hopes to get a couple more fights under her belt and then fight for a world championship by the end of the year. "I’m anxious. I’m hungry for it again. I want a shot," said Cooper.

Jill Emery W10 Angel Martinez... In other action, New York City-based Jill Emery won her first world title - the IFBA welterweight championship - with a ten-round decision over Angel Martinez. Before the opening bell, a number of writers in press row thought Angel was a man, and thus, we were being treated to a surprise mixed-gender bout. However, the short-haired Angel - it was later announced her full name is Angelica - was in fact a woman. Emery played the role of the boxer while Martinez was the aggressor although Emery’s boxing skills were not nearly as sharp as say Cooper or Ashley. Emery-Martinez was the lousiest fight of the night but Emery did what she needed to against a game opponent to get the "W."  Emery, who improved to 9-2 (3), was announced the winner by scores of 99-91, 97-93 and 96-94. Martinez fell to 6-5-1 (1).


MORE RESULTS... Elena "Baby Doll" Reid, one of the better known personalities in women’s boxing, was held to a majority draw by Ava Knight, of Chico, CA. Knight entered the fight with a record of 3-0-1 against Reid, a former WIBA flyweight champion with nearly 30 fights worth of professional experience. Despite the experience disparity, Knight was not in over her head. She was busier with her hands, appeared to have more pop on her punches than Reid and did some effective work to the body. Some in the crowd and press row felt Knight deserved better than a draw.

In a featherweight match-up, Ela Nunez, 7-3 (2), won a six-round unanimous decision over the taller Jeri Sitzes, 14-8-1 (6), who came into the ring wearing shorts that look liked they were stolen form Hector "Macho" Camacho’s closet. All three judges scored it 58-55 for Nunez. The only round Nunez didn’t take was the fourth, a round in which she was dropped in the first 15 seconds of the frame by a well-placed right hand.


A couple of hours prior to the fights inside Mohegan Sun Arena, an exhibit space for The Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame was unveiled. The Hall, which once led a nomadic existence - annual induction dinners have alternated between Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort Casino - now has a permanent space in the concourse area of Mohegan Sun Arena. The first inductions were held in 2005 and inductees from that inaugural year included boxing legend Willie Pep and former welterweight champion Marlon Starling. Starling was one of a number of Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame inductees on hand for Thursday’s ceremony. Another was Joe Rossi, a longtime trainer who established a boxing club in Naugatuck shortly after being discharged from the Army in 1940.


He said it was an honor to have a plaque on the wall next to Connecticut’s great fighters.  "There’s no words for it. I never expected to have anything like it," he said. "This is the best thing that ever happened to me, better than fighting." 
 

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