Quigg dethrones Booth the brave

Many in the trade had favoured Scott Quigg to be too big, too strong and too fresh for veteran British super-bantamweight champion Jason Booth when they met at Reebok Stadium on Saturday night [October 22].

And so it proved as the unbeaten but relatively untested Bury boxer - on a good-value Maloney Promotions card - forced the smooth-boxing Nottingham stylist, a former IBF world title challenger two weeks shy of his 34th birthday, to be retired by his corner at the end of the seventh.

Though Jason hadn't been off his feet and hadn't been in any great deal of trouble at the time of the ending, the challenger's hooks to the body and neatly-threaded right uppercuts had begun to find the mark with more and more regularity. There was only going to be one winner.

In truth, the title looked as though it would be changing hands from as early as the third.

At 33 and with 44 tough and testing professional bouts [36 wins, 15 early] under his 8st 10lbs belt, the Strelley-based former IBO, two-time British and three-time Commonwealth champion (8st 8 1/2lbs) is a fighter on the decline. But that doesn't mean he's no longer capable of competing with the top men in Britain. 

And he took the opening round for me - using his feet well to glide in and out of range and score with an accurate right hand. Trained in his home city by Tony Harris, Booth also made aggressive former kick-boxer Quigg (8st 9 1/2lbs) miss fairly wildly on several occasions, with his gloves taking anything that went close to landing on his well-worn face.

But Scott began to find his range as the bout went though rounds two and three, forcing the champion to box exclusively on the retreat and to take thumping rights to the ribs and quick-handed right uppercuts upstairs. Though several were taken on the gloves by the well-schooled four-time European title challenger, enough were finding the target to cause concern.

By the fifth, and now a 33/1-on favourite, Ricky Hatton-promoted Quigg showed that his youth [ten years younger], size [four-inch height advantage] and freshness [no wear-and-tear in a four-year paid career; Booth has been a pro since 1996 [at flyweight] and with well-documented outside-the-ring troubles] was too much for the willy experience of the canny little warrior.

Jason worked entirely off the back foot as the seventh started, shipping more heavy-looking right-handed uppercuts flush in the face. His defence was gradually being prized apart by the accurate blows and, as Booth walked back to his corner at the end of the seventh, his team - including promoter Frank Maloney and manager Jimmy Gill - decided enough was enough.

In his ringside interview afterwards with Sky Sports, Quigg said: "To win this [the British title] means a lot to me, as does sharing the ring and beating a great fighter and warrior like Jason. To do that to him shows i'm improving," added the Joe Gallagher-trained 23-year-old, now 23-0 (16).

Booth hinted he'll keep himself in shape and may even drop down to bantamweight, where he won the Commonwealth title in 2007. Whatever he decides to do next, be it carrying on or retirement, the former Radford Boys ABC East Midlander can be proud of a career that almost took him to a recognised version of a world title.

For the record, Richie Davies was the third man and Terry O'Connor, Ian-John Lewis and Steve Gray the three scoring judges who were rendered irrelevant by Quigg's clinical display of punching.