“I was 16 and I was pregnant.”
She had gone from being a 6-foot-2 rebounder on the girls basketball team to suddenly, as she put it, “living the adult life.”
“What bothered me most was that I felt I’d disappointed my mom,” she said. “She had worked hard to give us a new beginning, to give us the best of everything, and I wondered,
‘Did I squander everything? What am I going to do?’”
As she thought about those times — and the unlikely answer she’s now come up with — she began to grin:
- After graduating early at Belmont and then walking with her classmates at their commencement ceremony, she went on to an education at Sinclair Community College.
- She’s the mother of three children.
- She’s worked a series of jobs, from manual labor to teaching at a Kettering day care.
- And now, at age 42, comes the most unlikely part.
“Yeah, October is going to be a crazy month,” she laughed.
She’s a budding professional boxer — a 6-foot-2 heavyweight — who, after fighting three times out of state, is scheduled to make her hometown debut at The Uprising, a 10-bout fight show at the Flyght Academy in Trotwood on Oct. 19.
Two local pros of note will headline the card. Middleweight Chris Pearson will be the main event and super welterweight Jeff Camp will fight the co-feature.
Asbury will be on the undercard — her opponent has yet to be finalized — but a week before the Trotwood show, she’ll top the marquee when she stars in “Sometimes She Bites,” the latest venture of indie filmmaker Lee Zellars of Cincinnati.
The movie premiers Oct. 12 at the Esquire Theater in Cincinnati.
She revealed just a bit of the plot: “Myself and my fiancé are having a date night, and a gentleman tries to rob us, and I get hurt. I’m visited by a good priest and…”
She caught herself: “I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to reveal.”
The movie trailers make it clear she turns into a vampire, to which she added, “Well, I do go after the people who hurt me.”
While her vampire venture entails make-up, a movie script and fantasy, boxing is black and blue reality.
The fact that she’s entered the ring at an age when most boxers already have hung up their gloves — and she’s come into the pro ranks without having fought as an amateur — drew a couple of naysayers at first.
She remembered running into Buddy LaRosa, the pizza kingpin and patron saint of Cincinnati boxing who for more than 50 years has aided generations of boxers, including the late junior welterweight legend Aaron Pryor.
“Buddy thought I was too old to start,’” Asbury grinned.
And her late father, Chahn Claude Chess II, who she said was Pryor’s bodyguard when he knocked out Antonio Cervantes for the title at Riverfront Coliseum in 1980, initially was dead set against her boxing although he supported her younger brother Chaen, who’d been an accomplished amateur and was fighting professionally as a heavyweight.
“He tried to stop me and even called the (boxing) commission and tried to pressure them not to let me fight,” she said. “I couldn’t understand how his reaction could be so different for me and for my brother, although I do know fathers look at their daughters differently.
“At first, though, it really, really hurt my feelings. But after a while I came to realize. ‘Yeah, that’s something he’d do.’
“And once he saw me fighting, he was more comfortable with it and started coming around.”
Her biggest supporter is her mom, Lisa Asbury — a Sinclair nd Central State grad — who she refers to her as “My Momanger.”
“She’s self-promoted so I try to do everything I can to help her,” Lisa said. “Her younger brother had a good amateur career in the early 2000s and then signed with (promoter) Don King right in downtown Cincinnati.
“But we learned the hard way when you sign with a promoter you almost sign your life away.”
In his first eight fights — six which he won — Chaen fought almost everywhere but at home. He had four bouts in South Florida, others in Louisiana, Arkansas and North Carolina.
He did have one fight in Covington, Kentucky, but a motorcycle accident in 2017 stalled his career until recently. He’s training again and hopes to fight before the end of the year.
“Because Chia-Fei’s gotten into the game so late, we didn’t want to sign her away to someone else like that,” Lisa said.
While she said her mom handles much of her management and promotion, Chia-Fei trains at her brother’s King of Kingz Boxing & Fitness Gym on Colerain Avenue in Cincinnati.
“We’re the only brother and sister professional heavyweights around,” she said before she began her workout the other evening.
“It’s a weird feeling watching your sister fight,” Chaen said. “I’m nervous, but I’m happy and proud, too.”
She’s not the oldest woman making a name for herself.
Chevelle “Fist of Steel” Hallback, the current National Boxing Association welterweight champ and a seven-time world champion out of Plant City, Fla., is 53 and she just won again Friday night in Tampa.
Alica Ashley, who was born in Jamaica and fought out of Brooklyn, was 49 when she won the WBC Super Bantamweight title in a 2016 bout against Ireland’s Christina McMahon, who was 42.
“I think she’s showing age is just a number,” Chaen said. “It’s really more about self-awareness and a mindset.”
‘She does have something’
Chia Fei said her 20-year-old daughter, who is a talented art student at Sinclair, asked her not long ago:
“What’s it been like to be a mom most of your life?”
Along with her oldest son, who is a carpenter, and her daughter, Chia-Fei has a 13-year-old son, who is home-schooled.
While she talked about the joys and rewards of parenthood, she also admitted it’s not always been easy.
Early on she went to college, not as a student, but to do janitorial work at Central State and Wilberforce universities with her then boyfriend.
She’s worked other jobs, including for a decade at the Delightful Days Learning Center in Kettering.
“She put a lot aside for a long time to raise her kids, so it’s really dope to see her finally go after some of her dreams and not stop,” Chaen said.
Chia-Fei first tested her fistic ability nine years ago at one of the raucous Queen of the Ring shows at the Chrysler Union Hall in Old North Dayton.
They’re one-night, all-comers tournaments where winners advance, and patrons throw money into the ring until the bills litter the canvas.
“My girlfriend’s cousin put on the exhibitions, so I thought I’d try it,” she said.
She won her first fight and then lost by decision in her second.
“She should have won that fight too, but the other young lady was representing the guy who put on the show,” Lisa said. “Chia did knock her down in the first round and she never once backed up or stopped after that.
“Right then I thought, ‘OK, she does have something!’”
Chia-Fei said the Ohio Athletic Commission wouldn’t sanction her until she had a few pro fights already on her resume. And so, she’s fought on the road when she could.
After a couple of women backed out of scheduled bouts with her in West Virginia, she finally made her pro debut against Princess Hairston in Vienna, W. Va. in 2021 and they fought to a draw.
Twenty-one months later she needed just 12 seconds to score a TKO victory over Sierra Ramsey in Hopkinsville, Ky..
“The walk to the ring took longer than the fight,” she grinned.
Three months later in Memphis she was matched against Kayla Williams, a tenacious pro out of Louisiana, and lost a unanimous decision.
“She’s learning the game,” Chaen said. “She’s getting used to the tempo and energy that’s needed in the ring, but she’s tough as hell!”
Training with Cincinnati legend
Chaen’s King of Kingz Gym is on the second floor of a previously empty office building on Colerain Avenue.
Some established boxers work out there and the gym also houses his non-profit organization that teaches kids principles like discipline, teamwork and self-esteem through a boxing structure.
Chia-Fei drives down regularly from Kettering to train there. She also has a non-profit boxing organization — Fitness Inspired Training (F.I.T.) — that is a mobile effort that allows her to go into the community to teach seniors, young people and those in need.
When she arrived at the gym the other evening, her brother Chaen — who spent some of his high school years at Fairmont High School after his parents split up — already was mixing firmness with kindness as he guided several young kids through various drills.
Sitting on a chair along the wall was former world heavyweight champ Tony “TNT” Tubbs. He helps train Chia Fei and he and Chaen work her corner in fights.
One of Cincinnati’s greatest boxing products, Tubbs compiled a 240-13 amateur record, won the national AAU heavyweight title and defeated top amateurs like Russians Yevgeni Gorstkov and Pyotr Zayev and American boxers Greg Page, Mitch Green, James Broad, Jimmy Clark and Marvis Frazier .
He served as Muhammad Ali’s sparring partner in the late 1970s and went 47-10 as a pro. Although he lost to champs like Mike Tyson in Japan and Riddick Bowe in a controversial decision, he won the WBA heavyweight title in 1985 with a 15-round decision over Page, who was then the champ.
The 253 amateur fights and 26 years as a pro have taken a toll on the 66-year-old Tubbs, so just as he watches out for Chia Fei — “I want to make sure she doesn’t get hurt,” he said quietly — she is very protective of him.
Chia-Fei isn’t planning on a lengthy pro career, but she said she definitely has some things she wants to accomplish with her boxing, including growing her non-profit organization, inspiring people to continue to chase their dreams no matter what obstacles they face; and to finally be able to fight back at home and hear the cheers of a crowd.
That’s why she’s excited about an October bout in Trotwood.
“I keep saying, ‘God’s finally making this happen,’” she said. “Now I’ve just got to find out if it truly is a calling… or if it’s just crazy.”
And that was another tough question she’d eventually have to answer.
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