Ashton “H2O” Sylve may be only 20 years aged and has 11 fights in his professional boxing career, but the promising newborn lightweight contender smiles and admits that at times he already feels like a veteran.
“Yeah, definitely,” he told BoxingScene. “I feel like a veteran, honestly. And this is my fourth year as a pro. So yeah, I’ve been in the pro game for a while.”
He first put on gloves when he was just 7 years aged, at the request of his father, although newborn Ashton did not share his interest or fascination with the sport.
“Yeah, he basically forced me into boxing,” the Long Beach native chuckles. Ivan Sylve told his son that not only did he see the newborn man’s potential, but so did everyone who watched him; even though Ashton didn’t share that vision, he stuck with it, and then, around age 13, “I thought, I see the potential now, and I’m just going to keep doing it.”
Not everyone loves their job, even professional boxers, but Sylve (11-0, 9 KOs) says he enjoys his profession – with a caveat.
“I definitely fell in love with the sport,” he said. “I think the reason I didn’t like it at first was because it was there for me 24/7, day and night.” Things took a turn when he and his father realized he needed to have his own life, too. “Since then, boxing has been just in the gym. Outside, at home, it’s family time and everything else that comes with being a kid or whatever. Now I’m taking care of my own kid and we’re becoming a family instead of always talking about boxing, boxing, boxing. It used to burn me out.”
But outside the ring, it’s not all rest and relaxation. Sylve is acutely aware that a career in the sport can come to an abrupt end and that too many boxers have trouble hanging up their gloves, partly because they have no other prospects or interests, so even as he climbs the ranks, he’s working on a degree in business management. If his father is responsible for him becoming a boxer, he credits his grandmother with encouraging him to continue his education and keep his options open.
“She wasn’t in favor of me boxing from the start,” he recalled. “She tried to make me quit and say, ‘No, boxing is for idiots,’ and all that. So I decided I wanted to be an experienced boxer, have an education, but also be one of the best boxers.”
He turned pro at 16, fighting his first five fights in Tijuana; but after MVP Promotions co-founder Nakisa Bidarian saw him in action in Northern California in 2022, he and his business partner Jake Paul convinced Team Sylve to add the newborn fighter to their fresh group of prospects. Sylve has since fought on Paul’s undercards, most recently in the fifth installment of MVP’s Most Valuable Prospects series in February. He’ll be back in the ring on Saturday, taking on Lucas Bahdi (16-0, 14 KOs) in a sideshow to Paul’s fights with Mike Perry and Amanda Serrano’s meeting with Stevie Morgan.
Bidarian is eager to talk about his newborn warrior’s potential.
“He’s incredibly talented and has an incredible team around him,” Bidarian told BoxingScene. “And I think the future is incredibly vivid for him if he continues on the path he’s been on. He’s been on the biggest platforms and he’s shined on them as a showman and an athlete. If you look at the show we did with him in Phoenix, [against Braulio Rodriguez, underneath Paul’s defeat of Anderson Silva at Gelandale’s Gila River Arena in October 2022] he came to the ring dressed as a Minion and performed a spectacular feat [first-round] knockout. He is a infrequent and unique athlete.”
As his Minion entrance suggests, Sylve knows that boxing is an entertainment business. And besides, as O’Shaquie Foster can attest recently, the scorecards can throw up some nasty surprises. That’s why, even when he was recently cruising to a dominant decision over Estivan Falcao, he opted for a dramatic finish; while he failed to secure a knockout, he floored Falcao in the tenth round to add to the impressive performance.
“I don’t want to leave it in the judges’ hands,” he said, “and I like to feel great after a knockout. You want the audience to feel that. So I feel like the audience is always looking for something thrilling. And I want to give that to the audience.”
Like many newborn boxers, he already has some plans for how he will develop his future career, although one initial goal has already eluded him.
“I definitely had a schedule when I first started boxing, I wanted to go down in the history books as the youngest champion, but it didn’t work out because, you know, it’s tough to get fights for one,” he said. “There’s just so many things that go into it. So now that I’m learning the game more, I know there’s going to be a lot of adversity and stuff like that. But yeah, I still have a schedule of different things. The ultimate goal is to be somewhere around 33, 35. Definitely at least a two- or three-division world champion.”
Planning a career into your early 30s is looking far into the future for a 20-year-old. But for someone who has been in the ring since he was seven, he’s already halfway there.
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