The rise and fall and rise again of Jason Booth
When Jason Booth steps into this ring this weekend to face Steve Molitor for the IBF world title, he won’t just be glad that he’s fighting for an international strap, he’ll be glad that he is still alive.
“2 Smooth” showed a tremendous amount of talent from a very early age and by the time he was 25 he had the IBO super-flyweight belt in his possession. The world of boxing was very much his for the taking.
However following the loss of that title in his third defence against Damaen Kelly, Booth went awol from the sport for two years indulging in a life of drink and drugs. Booth fell so far from being a world champion that he was literally wandering the streets spending what little cash he had on alcohol and even spent a short shift in prison.
Booth’s life had spiralled so far out of control it was now comparable to that of a down-and-out. Drinking the left over’s of discarded beer cans, looking to score drugs and hanging around with crackheads it was as far removed from the life of a world champion boxer as you could possibly get.
Had 2 Smooth had a moment of clarity while at rock bottom he would have struggled to understand what he was doing in doss houses and crack dens. In the ring Booth has had precious little trouble and looked a top-class act for the majority of his career. He boxed for England as an amateur and won five national titles. He made his pro debut in 1996 and promptly won 19 of his first 20 fights, then proceeded to win British, Commonwealth titles as well as the IBO strap and he has twice challenged for the EBU belt.
He is a boxer-mover who works his way inside with a stiff left jab; throws good body punches and is a solid all-round fighter.
His descent into the dark abyss of alcoholism stemmed from a family tragedy. Booth lost his younger sister to suicide when she was 19 and that sent him into a depression that he dealt with through drink. He hit the bottle hard and two weeks after his sister’s passing he went into the ring with Dimitar Alipiev while drunk.
From there Booth was often inebriated before or after a fight with his share of the purse evaporating into an alcoholic dust cloud. Alongside his brother Nicky, also a boxer whose life went the same way, he lost appetite for the game replacing it with a dependency to get plastered. For two years booth lived this shell of an existence before realising he was going to die if he continued in this vein and that it was time to turn things around.
After some serious health problems and meeting his girlfriend, Sarita, Booth managed to pull himself together and is now set for a world-title shot that he probably would have got years ago if it wasn’t for all his problems.
In boxing the old triumph-over-adversity tale can seem clichéd and repetitive due to Hollywood romanticism. In reality the opposite is often true with boxers enjoying great successes before losing it all, such as Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier. To get his life back on track Booth has shown remarkable courage and focus to get back up to elite level fighting. His brother Nicky has not been so fortunate and still battles his demons, but in terms of inspiration he need look no further than his big brother who, with one more push, could see his Cinderella story come to be.
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