Little men put on big show of huge heart in the ring

TV View: Invariably, those who pursue a life in professional sport must possess an inner toughness that enables them to surmount the hard times. In boxing, this is especially true and, in the case of Jason Booth, we have perhaps the purest example of all.

To his friends, Jason is known as "2 Smooth", and he has a tattoo above his left nipple to remind anyone lest they forget. It's just one of many markings on a heavily-tattooed body that stands no more than 5ft 5in and weighs slightly over 8st.

On Friday night, Jason was defending his IBO super-flyweight championship title against Damaen Kelly, who hails from the Turf Lodge area of Belfast, and Sky Sports brought what transpired to be an epic fight - which should have carried an over-18s certification - into our cosy living-rooms.

Ironically, in a way, Padraig Harrington was being interviewed simultaneously by Pat Kenny on The Late, Late Show, and you couldn't help but compare the different paths these sportsmen had taken. Harrington has worked harder than virtually anyone on the golf tour to get where he is and epitomises an image of a new, confident Ireland. So much so, that he is effectively the poster boy for Fáilte Ireland in luring golfing tourists to our fair land.

But by the end of the bout, you could never envisage the battered faces of Booth or Kelly being used in a similar way. As Ian Darke, the polished fight commentator put it when the camera zoomed in on Kelly's face, his right eye swollen closed and his left filled with blood from a long gash suffered in the fourth of 12 gruelling rounds: "Talk about giving blood for the cause."

Indeed, the sight of so much blood - Kelly's green-and-white shorts were predominantly red by fight's end - is probably one of the reasons professional boxing rarely appears on terrestrial channels. Of course, the main reason has to do with money and the willingness of some to pay-to-view the big heavyweight fights.

Yet, this fight of the little men was as enthralling - if you could stomach it - as any bout seen throughout the year, and Booth's presence was one of the reasons.

After all, his is a story of personal tragedy with boxing his route, as it has been for so many, to the possibility of a better life.

As Darke informed us in the preamble to the fight, Booth had a near-death experience when he "was hit with an iron bar in an alleyway, (and) his leg was stamped on, he came back from that to re-establish himself at the top of boxing . . . his brother, Nicky, has recently been in jail and released . . . and six years ago his sister committed suicide. Every time he goes out to run, he says a little prayer in her memory. This is a man who has come through a lot, just to be here tonight."

Booth entered the contest as the champion, Kelly as the challenger but the favourite.

It didn't look as if the fight would go the distance, but not due to any knockout punch. In the fourth round, an accidental clash of heads resulted in Kelly receiving the ugly gash over his left eye which spurted blood into the eye. At the end of each round, his cornerman worked tirelessly to stem the flow and trainer Michael Hawkins intoned to his man that "this is not over until it's over . . . get you out there now and give me 100 per cent".

If Booth's very presence in the ring after so much personal turmoil proved he was no quitter, so too did Kelly prove the same as he refused to give in.

Although, when expert analyst Spencer Oliver at ringside was called in at one juncture to give his verdict on how the bout was evolving, it seemed as if he was watching a different fight. "I've got him (Booth) four points up, (it) looks like he is dominating . . . Kelly's boxing the wrong fight for me, he thinks he can punch a little bit better than he really can," opined Oliver.

"That really was an alternative view," said an intrigued Darke, while his co-commentator, Jim Watt, diplomatically remarked, "When rounds are close, if you give all the close rounds the same way, then scoring in a boxing match doesn't always reflect the action. I've got it closer than that obviously, you see it how you see it. So many close rounds here you can't argue with anyone's interpretation."

The fight went the distance, and, ignoring Oliver's interpretation, Watt and Darke felt Kelly had won by one round. Which is not how the three judges saw it. All three went for Kelly by wide margins and, while visibly disappointed at the decision, Booth - battered face and all - managed to show us some of the fortitude that has enabled him to overcome so many obstacles.

"What did you think of those referees?" he was asked.

"Well, I'm going to get them right now," he replied.