By Steven Wain: Tomorrow night at the Harvey Hadden Leisure Centre, Nottingham, England, Jason “2 smooth” Booth (34-5, 14KO’s) defends his British super Bantamweight title against London’s light punching Matthew Marsh (13-1, 1KO).
Jason Booth turned professional in 1996 with a 3rd round TKO victory over Darren Noble, he built up an impressive 14 fights undefeated record before becoming unstuck when challenging for the European flyweight title against David Guerault which Booth lost by unanimous decision. Jason fought for the European flyweight title another two times against Alexander Makhmutov in 2001 and Mimoun Chent in 2002 losing both by unanimous decision and technical decision respectively. In 2003 Booth won the International Boxing Organisation super flyweight title with a split decision win over Lunga Ntontela, although Booth was knocked down in round 7 of the contest, he defended his title against Dale Robinson before losing it in 2004 to Damaen Kelly.
In 2000 Booth was the first person to put a defeat on Ian Napa’s record with a 12 round points victory, the fight was for the British flyweight title and the Commonwealth flyweight title. Napa got his revenge when the pair met again in 2007, this time Napa was on the end of a unanimous points win; this is Booths last defeat so far in his professional career.
Recently Booth has won his last 7 bouts, 4 of those Booth won by stoppage, the most impressive of those was his last outing when he made a once world title challenger Michael Hunter quit on his stool after the end of the 5th round, giving Booth his second successful defence of his British super bantamweight title, which he won by TKO in 2009.
27 year old Matthew Marsh is a former two times ABA champion at Flyweight and Bantamweight he is also a former British super bantamweight champion, he should be the English super bantamweight champion after he beat Josh Wale by 10 round points victory but the title remained vacant after Marsh came in 6oz over the championship limit.
Marsh has only one defeat in his 14 fight professional record, this defeat came in 2007 against Derry Mathews; Marsh lost the fight by TKO in round 11. With only 1 knockout to date Marsh is certainly not a knockout artist. He has beaten Rocky Dean three times twice by 10 round points wins and once by a 12 round majority decision. There really is not much more to say about Marsh other then when he usually fights the fights go all the way, so I guess I will end it there.
Who wins the fight? For me it has to be Jason Booth, the guy has much, much more experience he has the power, the chin (not that Marsh’s power will trouble him) and most of all he has done 12 rounds many times unlike Marsh who has only been 12 rounds twice before in his career. I’m not saying the task is impossible for Marsh, but I am saying it will be very difficult, if he uses his jab effectively and keeps catching Booth as he (Booth) is a pressure fighter and will keep coming at Marsh, and makes Booth work then he might just earn himself a points win, but I see this as a very slim chance.
I predict Marsh will start fast, starting to slow in the middle rounds, this is were Booth will take over and show his skills and earn himself a unanimous points victory if not a late stoppage.
This should be a very interesting fight, and any true boxing fan should defiantly tune into sky sports 1 and HD 1, sky channel 401 and 408.
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