Marie-Pier Houle was aggressive. She fought until the end. But she had to admit defeat by unanimous decision in front of the Briton Sandy Ryan, Saturday, in Wales, during the world championship fight for the WBO welterweight title.
To the sound of Fuel of Metallica, Houle showed up to the ring in the same way she always does: with a smile. The fight started very well for the Quebecer, who was incisive as soon as the bell sounded and did not slow down in the first round, multiplying the strikes in front of a very defensive Ryan from the start.
PHOTO ANDREW COULDRIDGE, REUTERS
Sandy Ryan
As Houle had expected, the Englishwoman went there with several uppercuts and punches to the liver, but the native of Terrebonne managed to avoid them well at the start of the fight. It was in the fourth round that the pace picked up a notch; Ryan attacked with a series of precise shots and took the upper hand. Houle, shaken and with a bloody nose, seemed to be running out of energy. She struggled to regain control of the duel.
“Stop chasing after him,” said Sébastien Gauthier, Houle’s trainer, to his boxer after the sixth round.
She did. MPH was more patient in the next round, and seemed to have renewed energy in the eighth round. She was nevertheless a victim of Ryan’s combinations, whose face was still intact. The latter also went there with a powerful and violent uppercut in the ninth.
Houle never gave up, executing his plan: knock, over and over, until the final bell. But the Englishwoman in front of her seemed unshakable.