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© Jane Warburton / Saddo Boxing
Last night at the Harvey Hadden Leisure Centre, Nottingham, England – promoter Frank Maloney staged an exciting night of 11 contests. The main event was Rendall Munroe challenging Spanish Kiko Martinez for the European Super Bantamweight title, billed as “The Matador Versus The Bull.”
The other main event was Jason Booth defending his Commonwealth Bantamweight belt against Ghanaian Lante Addy. Apparently, Booth had little previous knowledge of Addy, having watched no video tapes of the challenger.
As round one begins, Referee Phil Edwards stops proceedings after just a few seconds to remove a thread of red cotton stuck to the head of Addy! The two men are toe-to-toe as they slug it out.
Mid-way through round two and Booth wrestles Addy over to the canvas and the referee signals a no knock down. “Watch your heads!”, he cautions.
Round three and Addy is certainly not shy in the ring despite looking like a shy timid young man at the weigh-in just the day before. In the closing seconds of the round, Booth lands a left bang on the chin of Addy and he falls to the canvas, quickly jumping up, looking more surprised than hurt! There was so much noise that Referee Edwards didn’t hear the bell signal the end of the round.
In the fourth, Booth comes out throwing a number of punches in succession – possibly fired up from the previous success at the end of round three. A left hand punch catches Addy – who smarts from the shot, but doesn’t go down.
Booth looks more in control, but the Ghanaian is a tough fighter and the two men are unceasing in their work-rate. They’re still fighting toe to toe with Booth the more accurate of the two. Addy lands a few more shots in the fifth round. He’s throwing a lot of punches so far, but his success rate is low.
Booth is moving around a bit more in round six and seems more confident and loose. He switches to southpaw and then back again. In round seven, Addy throws more body-shots and some wild swinging shots, which go right off the mark.
It’s been an action packed seven rounds, but both men have kept up the pace. Booth seems to have tried every combination and Addy has taken everything.
In the first minute of round ten, the two men’s feet get caught up and as Addy tries to break away, Booth takes advantage and throws a left hook – Addy looks to complain to the referee and Booth stands off .
In the opening seconds of round eleven, Booth skips away from Addy, signaling that he has forgotten his gum shield and the referee allows him to get it. Foster then calls a halt in the first minute to attend to Addy’s glove, as the tape has come loose – this takes a while for the corner to fix it!
In the last minute, Booth does some show-boating and the crowd chant “Boothy, Boothy.”
During the twelfth and final round, the referee warns Booth as the Nottingham man held the back of Addy’s head and threw an uppercut.
Both fighters have been relentless throughout the fight, but Booth has been the more accurate and secures a unanimous points win 118-110, 117-111 and 118-111.
Booth moves to 29-5 (11) as he defends the Commonwealth crown for the first time and Addy suffers the first loss of a still burgeoning career, falling to 5-1 (3).
