By Nate Anderson: BBBofC British super bantamweight champion Jason Booth (34-5, 14 KO’s) overcame a slow start on Friday night to first dominate and then get the stoppage win over challenger Michael Hunter (29-2-1, 13 KO’s) after he quit on his stool after the 5th round at the Seaburn Centre, Sunderland.

The bout was stopped after the 5th by referee Mark Green. Hunter, 31, has fought well in the first two rounds during which time he took the fight to champion Booth and outworked him in those rounds. But, after the 2nd round, Hunter seemed to fade away completely as Booth took control over the fight with his hard body shots and equally hard shots to the head. Booth, making his end defense of his British super bantamweight champion, couldn’t be stopped in his single-minded determination to pound Hunter.

The change around for Booth was startling, because he did very little in the first two rounds of the fight and was out-punched by the then fresher Hunter. However, it now seems that Booth was just waiting Hunter out, biding his time until Hunter shot off all his fireworks and then come after him with power shots.

If that was Booth’s strategy, it worked perfectly because he did a number on Hunter with his sudden increase in work rate in the 3rd. It was as if Booth turned it up a couple of gears and left Hunter in the rear view mirror. It’s hard to say what happened to Hunter. It could have been his conditioning because he basically stopped punching after the 2nd round and mostly caught punches for the next three rounds without fail.

It was an abrupt about face for him, because he looked good early on. But in looking back at the fight, Hunter wasn’t fighting in a relaxed way like Booth was during this time. It may have been that Hunter decided to fight all out in the opening two rounds and hope for the best to happen.

Whatever the case, Booth was in firm command of the fight from the 3rd round on, landing blistering body shots and devastating rights to the head. Booth’s pressure and work rate were very impressive from the 3rd round until the fight was stopped after the 5th. He was really pouring it on.

The 5th round was especially one-sided as Booth ripped into Hunter with big body shots all round long and really punished him. Hunter got beat up in that round and even if the fight hadn’t been stopped after the round, I have doubts whether Hunter would have made it another round or two without being stopped on the canvas.

He was really struggling and taking severe punishment by that point in the fight and looked to have nothing left to fight back with. It was a wise move for his corner to put an end to the fight following the fifth, because he just didn’t have what it takes to unseat a champion like Booth.