24.4.2007: Middleweight contender Evans “The African Warrior” Ashira (26-3, 13 KOs), who lost a close fight for the Commonwealth title against former world-title-challenger Howard Eastman (42-4, 35 KOs) this past Friday, is enraged about how the fight with the Guyana-born Englishman was allowed to progress. Ashira, and manager Jan Andersen, blames Eastman and referee John Keane for spoiling the fight, and denying the Denmark-based Kenyan a fair playing field..
(Howard Eastman, right, covers up while Evans Ashira attacks him in the corner) “Eastman just came to survive, and the referee let him do anything he wanted without doing anything about it. Eastman was holding the entire fight, and had his head on my lab more than I care to think about. John Keane just let him do it. Can you imagine a six-foot tall guy bending down and holding so much that my trunks was all greased up from his Vaseline? It was crazy,” says Ashira.
Ashira, himself a former two-time world title challenger (WBA and WBO), feels he was the one landing the better shots, and the only person in the ring who tried to make a fight, being the aggressor throughout.
“If it hadn’t been for me, the spectators would not have seen a fight at all. How can you award someone for negative boxing like that? Holding doesn’t score points! The spectators were booing him, and I also hear that the TV commentators didn’t think he did enough to win. It was a close fight, I will give him that, but only because of all the holding. If he had come to fight instead of running and holding, it would have been a different story. And he probably knows that. He probably knows I would have knocked him out”.
Ashira also takes offence about Eastman’s claims that he only trained six days for the fight:
“Of course he didn’t only train six days for the fight. Maybe he only had six days in England with training, but he trained in Guyana. I can understand he needs an excuse for his poor performance, but don’t ridicule me by saying six days of training was enough to beat me. But, let him train for three months and then lets do it again without all the holding. Probably no TV channel will show a rematch, because Howard made the first fight so poor, but that’s all right. I will fight him for free, if he just promises me he will train three months in England for it, and of course get a referee who will make sure he doesn’t hang on me like that again”.
Ashira continues:
“Eastman said he used the tactics to win. What kind of tactics is it holding all night pulling my legs off the ring, trying to drop me by grabbing my legs instead of hitting me? I think its sad to hear him boast of tactics like that. Even he knows that stuff belongs to wrestling, and him watching too much wrestling don’t help him much. The bottom line is the fight was close, but the only one who deserved to win was the African Warrior, because without me there was no fight that night”.