Jason Booth beats Jamie Arthur to retain British title

by Adam D Sun 06 Feb 2011, 07:17

Jason Booth added the Commonwealth crown to his British super-bantamweight title with a gutsy split-decision win over Jamie Arthur in Brentwood, Essex.

Welshman Arthur, 31, keeping his range and working off his jab, had negated Booth's counter-punching early on.

But Booth, 33, fought with increasing belief, landing the more solid blows, as the bout descended into a scrap.

And with two judges scoring 115-113 and 117-112 in his favour, Booth narrowly triumphed in the unification clash.

Booth, who had lost an IBF world-title shot to Steve Molitor in September, had arrived late to the venue after taking a wrong turn off the M25 motorway.

And the Nottingham fighter looked ill-prepared and sluggish as the patient Arthur, with a five-inch height advantage, picked his punches and moved around the ring with authority.

After three rounds Booth had been roundly out-boxed, but the complexion of the fight altered in the fifth as both men sustained accidental cuts to the eye through clashes of heads.

The increasingly nip-and-tuck affair was suiting Booth better and Arthur picked up a second eye gash - this time on his left side - as the head clashes continued and tactics were seemingly abandoned.

The contest, though, was no less enthralling for its ugliness as both men gave everything to deliver a gripping finale.

Arthur withstood a vicious right-hand in the 10th to battle on gallantly to the end but he could only persuade one judge, who scored him 115-114, that he had done enough as Booth, deservedly, took the honours.

source - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/9388141.stm