by Rachel O’Connor Guiseley schoolboy Jack ‘Babyface’ Bateson created history on Saturday when he won the final of the ABA national schoolboy championships for the third time, the maximum possible.

At Goresbrook Leisure Centre in Dagenham, 14-year-old Jack was up against the much vaunted Otuo Saba from the nearby Peacock’s Gym. Saba has been hyped up with his trainer raving about him on the amateur boxing site, Warrior. The young boxer has also been featured on Setanta Sports as a big prospect for the future, even Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke was talking about him.

But the young Yorkshireman let his boxing do the talking in the 38kg category as he lifted his third successive Royal Navy sponsored ABA Schoolboys’ title.

Saba’s experience and talent didn’t match up to that of Bateson who beat Otuo convincingly 10-2 on points.

Young Jack is the first amateur from Leeds, and possibly Yorkshire, in the history of the long-running national schoolboy championships to have taken the title three times (Classes 1, 2 and 3).

Jack dominated the bout, which generated a lot of interest from the boxing fraternity, from the first bell. He took Saba completely out of his stride with his lovely footwork and head movement.

Despite Saba’s height and reach advantage Jack’s experience and skill shone through.

Jack came into the final after beating a previous National Champion in the semi-finals in Jack Coglan of Spennymoor ABC 10-3.

Jack has won all of his final contests convincingly. In his first year he won 9-3 against Thomas Wilson of Knowsley Vale ABC. In Year 2 he had an 11-1 win over Jack Budge of St Mary’s ABC. The Allerton High School pupil has won 19 of his 20 fights. He incurred his only loss when he boxed for England against the Irish National Champion, where he was extremely unlucky in his 5-4 loss. His coach has been pursuing the Irish camp for a re-match, but they are unwilling to take on the challenge.

Jack started boxing at a very young age, following in the footsteps of his dad, Mark and his uncle, Martin – twins who were both amateur boxers. Martin is an amateur boxing trainer and has taken a big part in preparing Jack for the competition.

Jack is very focussed and attends the gym five times a week. He looks up to the likes of Floyd Mayweather and Roy Jones but has a unique style of his own.

His dad Mark is a local boxing promoter and professional trainer who stages shows at Elland Road. It is at these events where Jack gets some of his inspiration meeting big names from boxing, past and present, such as Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton and most recently Jake Lamotta. Photographs of him with these boxing icons sit amongst his many trophies.

Jack has been dreaming of a hat-trick win since he won his first title back in 2007. He now has his sights set on the 2012 Olympics in London, when he will have reached the age of 18. In the meantime Phil Sellars is now going to enter Jack for competitions overseas as it is going to prove extremely difficult to get other boxers from this country willing to take him on.

Jack said: “I would like to thank all the coaches at the Burmantofts Gym who have invested their own time in me. I would also like to thank themany supporters who travelled down on the coach at the weekend to spur me on.”