The first full training day at Gleason’s Fantasy Boxing Camp last August in the Catskills, I saw one of the top female bantamweights, Alicia “Slick” Ashley, working with three students at one time. She was holding what looked to be a red ping-pong paddle, and was deftly using it to point and correct. Trim, petite, with a seriousness that she maintained throughout the training session, she mesmerized the students and anyone watching with her focus and concentration.
On Wednesday, January 19, Ashley (15-9-1, 1KO) will bring that unique fierceness to the ring in an 8 round battle with Crystal Hoy (5-3-3, 2KO) in Maureen Shea’s “Brooklyn Explosion,” at the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn, NY. This is Shea’s first card for her new company, Pandora Promotions. Shea, a boxer herself (15-2), known for being the real “Million Dollar Baby,” is an NABC featherweight titleholder from the Bronx.
At Boxing Camp we watched footage of Ashley fighting, and that’s when I really began to take special notice of her. We were in the “disco bar” and the atmosphere couldn’t have been more surreal. Golf clubs, ski poles, and hockey sticks adorned the walls, and through one clear wall you could see the indoor pool. If any of this sounds elegant or upscale, it’s not. We’re talking décor from an Austin Powers movie remade by David Lynch. But like an aging fighter, Kutsher’s as the last remaining kosher resort of the Borscht Belt era, just won’t leave the ring. One of their annual events is hosting Gleason’s Fantasy Boxing Camp.
I sidled up to the table where Alicia sat with a few cronies from the Gleason’s crowd. She was getting her hair braided by Jackie Atkins, a beautiful, muscular African-American woman who is a personal trainer, boxing fan, and promoter of programs for youth. On the screen Alicia’s hair was down in a kind of pageboy, straightened, and with bangs. She laughed as she watched. “That just tells ya – don’t fight with your hair out.” Her hair was the least of it – her moves, her speed, her agility, her power, and her defensive abilities – were dazzling.
At breakfast the next day, Alicia told me she was eleven years old when she came to the US from Jamaica. She had done “performance” dancing, as she called it, and ballet all her life. Her father is a retired choreographer who lives on the island of New Caledonia. He taught in France for thirty years. Her mother is a retired bookkeeper living in Florida. Maurice, one of her brothers, was the only black chess grandmaster in the world. “You look so completely calm in the ring. How do you do that?” I asked. “I’m used to being on stage,” she said, “and I like it. People see the confidence when I’m fighting, and there’s no emotions, just my body. It’s, um, odd because I’m actually a really, really shy person. But when I perform I can draw people in.”
Alicia danced until she was 21. She won an amateur night at the Apollo Theatre, and became one of the Apollo dancers. Fourteen years ago she won a prestigious scholarship to study with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. However, she tore her meniscus and couldn’t dance anymore. She desperately wanted to replace dancing with another strenuous physical activity that had elements of performance. Her oldest brother Devon, who did karate in Jamaica, suggested that she start karate. She did, and then moved on to kickboxing. Her first amateur kickboxing fight was with a boxer. “I used to see boxing as brutal,” she admitted. “But now I see how to use it as a strategy. I want to move my opponent into the path I want them to go. I just want them to look silly.” She smiled.
“Boxing is like ballet. You watch the principal dancer. Everyone else disappears. In boxing, it’s the same. I want everyone to be watching me.”
Alicia trains students six days a week at Gleason’s. Her brother Devon trains students there, too.
“I realized my dream in becoming a world champion,” Alicia says. “Boxing is my pleasure.”
The Masonic Temple is located at 317 Clermont Avenue in Brooklyn, NY.
Tickets for "Brooklyn Explosion", priced $75 and $50, can be purchased by contacting Amanda at Global Boxing Gym in North Bergen, NJ at 201-348-3149. Doors open at 6:30 PM. First bout starts at 7:30.
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