Booth Too Smooth For Rocky

By Andrew Wake: There was to be no real life Rocky story at a sweltering York Hall in Bethanal Green tonight (Tuesday 30 June) as Jason Booth retained his British super-bantamweight title in impressive fashion.

Going into the clash Thetford’s Rocky Dean (real name) predicted that his natural size advantage would enable him to overpower the champion in the late rounds, but Booth put on a superb display of movement and accuracy to successfully negotiate the first defence of the crown he won by beating Mark Moran in April.

After 12 completed rounds the judges decision was unanimous (119 – 109 twice and 120 – 108)

31-year-old Booth, who has also won titles at fly, super-fly and bantamweight and battled back well from an alcohol addiction that nearly curtailed his career, lived up to his “2 Smooth” moniker from the opening bell, moving backwards and forwards on his toes and getting off straight rights to the head and solid hooks to the ribs.

Dean, fighting for the British title for the second successive fight after losing out narrowly to former champ Matthew Marsh last November, was undeterred by Booth’s superior work rate and kept plugging away but couldn’t find the punches to break his foe’s rhythm.

And so the one-sided rounds continued until the ninth when finally Booth slowed down and the Thetford-native finally began to have success with his short hooks to the body.

The final three rounds saw Booth back to boxing from range. He picked Dean off with his jab while occasionally interspersing his attacks with quick hooks.

Booth now has plenty of options available to him. He could face off with European and Commonwealth super-bantam ruler Rendall Munroe but as the pair are former stable mates and good friends outside the ring that seems unlikely. A more realist clash for the Nottingham man would be fight with former domestic and European king Michael Hunter, who returned to the game late last year after a short period in retirement.

Olympic bronze medallist Darren Sutherland, in his first fight in London, came through his toughest test to date against Gennadiy Rasalev of the Ukraine.

Super-middleweight Sutherland put his shots together well in the first session but had a difficult second round.

Rasalev may have been a relative novice with a record of 2 – 1 and little amateur experience, but he proved he hadn’t just come for his pay packet when he got off a three punch combination that opened up a nick on the Irishman’s right cheek.

After weathering the storm, Sutherland was back in control in the third round, making the Ukrainian miss and punishing him with right hands.

And midway through the fourth of this fight scheduled for six rounds the clash was all over. Sutherland’s sharp punching had opened up a cut above Rasalev’s eye and after a quick inspection referee Mark Green waved the fight off.

It was a disappointing end to a fight that had given the London-based Dubliner more to think about then any of his previous three outings but it has to be said that he handled the problems well and this will probably go down as a good learning experience.

2002 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Jamie Arthur of Cwmbran pulled off a minor upset by defeating the highly touted Akaash Bhatia by a solitary point in a 10 round British featherweight title eliminator.

All the results from York Hall
British super bantamweight title Jason Booth w pts 12 Rocky Dean
heavyweight Tom Dallas w tko 2 Stas Belokon
light heavyweight Mene Edwards w rtd 1 Lee Nicholson
super middleweight Darren Sutherland w tko 4 Gennadiy Rasalev
junior welterweight Martin Welsh w pts 4 Kristian Laight
featherweight Jamie Arthur w pts 10 Akaash Bhatia
flyweight Ashley Sexton w pts 6 Kemal Plavci