Ash changes tactics to win a barnstormer

Pettigrew drives a left to Karami’s body. Picture: BCB Promotions

ASHLEY Pettigrew, having his first UK bout after a six month Thailand training stint, was given a rugged home-coming at the Hangar, Wolverhampton, on Friday.

The Stafford puncher and Bahadur Karami served-up a very good scrap on BCB’s big title show, Pettigrew taking a hard-earned 39-37 decision from referee Chris Dean after four action packed rounds.

Pettigrew didn’t emerge unscathed. He was cut in the corner of his left eye in the second and took some clubbing shots from the Manchester based Iranian.

Ashley rolled the dice by taking a fight a stone above his light-middleweight (11st) division. He learned super-middleweights are a lot harder to budge.

That realisation came midway through the contest. Pettigrew (12st 1lb) ditched his efforts to punch it out with Karami (12st 2lbs) and instead kept mobile and pocketed points.

“They are big, strong boys,” Pettigrew, who won for the fifth time in six outings, said. “I was getting too close. He caught me and buzzed me – that’s why I changed tactics.”

Ashley started brightly, unloading left hooks and planting rights in the body. Karami took them, kept chugging forward and, by the second, was connecting with clubbing punches. The sight of blood seeping from Pettigrew’s eye spurred him into greater efforts.

Pettigrew heeded the warnings and turned it into a different fight from the third round. He moved, jabbed and speared Karami with right hands.

He kept on the move in the last and sealed the session with a right uppercut.