In the wrong person’s hands, the justice dished out to Chordale Booker more than a decade ago would have kept him incarcerated on drug and gun charges through this past year.

Instead, thanks to a chance meeting and the willingness of a superior court judge in Stamford, Connecticut, to believe in the power of redemption, Booker will walk into a Las Vegas boxing ring Saturday night with the opportunity to emerge as a unified world champion.

“I'm just so blessed that I get to do this and I'm gonna take full advantage of it. I'm just so happy that I'm finally here,” Booker, 23-1 (11 KOs), told BoxingScene of his Saturday title shot at WBC/WBO junior-middleweight champion Sebastian Fundora 21-1-1 (13 KOs) at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob Ultra Arena on Prime Video.

Booker, 33, was 19 years old and had fully embraced a turn away from crime by entering the rigorous demands of the boxing gym one year after his arrest for possession of a pistol without a permit and possession of crack cocaine.

He took ownership of the transgression, pleading guilty while knowing an uncertain fate awaited.

“I needed something that was constructive and competitive and provided some discipline,” Booker said. “I thought, ‘I'll put myself in boxing because I no longer want to be outside doing things outside in the street with my friends.’”

Unbeknownst to Booker, one of the boxing judges at the Golden Gloves competition he entered was the very criminal judge who was set to decide his fate later that year.

Booker spotted Judge Gary J. White and later approached the judge. Unsure of what to do or say, Booker decided saying hello was appropriate.

“You’re the judge on my case,” Booker reminded White.

“Who are you?” White asked.

“Booker,” the amateur boxer answered.

Judge White walked away from the young fighter and went about his business, leaving Booker to think he did the wrong thing by making any contact.

Months later, Booker attended his sentencing hearing with his grandmother, Shirley, and mother, Shirls, knowing he confronted the maximum exposure of 13 years in prison.

“Normally, someone in that situation would’ve gone to prison,” Judge White told BoxingScene Tuesday in a telephone interview from his courtroom chambers.

The judge said he considered “something in his pre-sentencing investigation,” tied to the fact that Booker took full responsibility for his behavior and was determined to re-make his life.

Instead of letting Booker rot behind bars, Judge White sentenced him to three years’ probation. Booker’s grandmother broke down in tears of joy inside the courtroom, as Booker recalled Judge White told the fighter he was pleased to learn he “was doing things to change my life.”

“He saw that I was being constructive with my time and actually doing things to be a part of – and help – my community rather than being a product of my environment,” Booker said. “I found myself being so grateful with so many things running through my mind … .

“I could have been gone. The fact that I’ve been able to be here [in society] this whole time frame, and seeing how much I’ve done with my life … it’s just remarkable how supportive [Judge White] has been with me.”

White has observed Booker’s progress with delight.

“Over a long period of time, I’ve found ‘Cord’ to be an extremely hardworking and humble young man who has a world of talent in boxing and overall athletic ability,” Judge White said. “He’s been knocked down in the ring and out of the ring, but he’s managed to overcome difficulties. I’m really proud of him.”  

Judge White has attended some of Booker’s professional fights, was there to watch him get honored by the Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame, and has seen the young man remain on the straight and narrow, diligently and humbly scratching and clawing to finally reach the top 15 of the WBO junior-middleweight rankings.

The timing of that position was fortuitous.

In January, after nearly a year of expectation that Fundora, 27, was bound to meet former three-belt welterweight champion Errol Spence Jnr in Fundora’s first defense of the belts he won by edging Tim Tszyu in a bloody March 2024 split-decision in Las Vegas, Spence bowed out of talks.

The WBO announced that Fundora needed to fight a top-15 contender for its belt to be on the line.

The highest-ranked opponent connected to Premier Boxing Champions was Booker, who constructed his pro career at East Coast venues before getting knocked out in the first round by Austin “Ammo” Williams in a 2022 bout at Madison Square Garden.

Booker has said the perspective he gained in reflecting every day on the positives of how fate intervened in his life allowed him to quickly conquer the disappointment he absorbed and the ridicule he received from the Williams loss.

He’s gone 6-0 since with four knockout/stoppage victories.

In a 2016 documentary on Booker, Judge White projected that type of persistence.

“If you mean he’s lost because he’s not successful in a boxing match, then I don’t accept that definition of losing,” Judge White said. “If he has trained hard, gets in there and does his best and he makes his community proud, he’s won.

“It doesn’t matter whether a referee’s raised his hand after a fight’s over. It doesn’t matter whether you’re knocked down. It matters what you do after you’ve been knocked down. You have to get up and continue. Everybody’s been knocked down at some point in their life, including you and me.

“That’s life.”

The opinions of the 6-feet-5 ½ Fundora vary widely, with some hailing him as the best fighter in a stacked division that includes fellow champions Terence Crawford and Bakhram Murtazaliev, elite contenders Vergil Ortiz Jnr, Serhii Bohachuk, Tszyu and former welterweight champions Spence and Keith Thurnman, and others viewing him as a fortunate successor to Tszyu, who suffered a vicious head cut early in their fight and was hindered by the injury one fight after Fundora was knocked out by Brian Mendoza.

“He’s the best. He’s the only one with two belts. So he’s the best until one of us proves we can beat him,” Booker said.

Booker had just returned home from training in January when he found out he was getting the Fundora fight.

“I was super ecstatic, I thought it was a joke at first,” he said.

On so many other similar occasions, Booker was intent to come home after a full day of work at the gym and resolve to take one small career step forward.

“When it comes to boxing, you’re only as big as the engine behind you,” Booker said. “These guys who have the big promoters, who have a lot of money behind them, they can move fast.

“I don't really have that budget so I'll fight guys who were sometimes getting paid more than me, just because I was just trying to get up here. Not everybody's going to take those type of fights, willing to make any level of progress to become better. I really believed that’s what it’d take to get here.”

That has meant swallowing pride and carrying confidence.

Much of that is rooted in lessons from his grandmother, who died in recent years.

“She was super tough. Without her, I wouldn't even be a boxer, because she always told me never to let anybody walk all over me,” Booker said, “I can remember feeling that spark from her in my first fight when it got tough … seeing how strong the two most important women in my life were … I knew I had to be like that as a man. I need to be tough, too.”

The lesson from Booker’s example is stark.

Considering that Black inmates constitute 32 percent of state and federal prison population across the U.S., sparing Booker from being just another statistic has generated a lifetime of motivation, gratitude and success.

“I found it extremely refreshing that he accepted responsibility, tried to make amends and wanted to be a hard worker,” Judge White said. “There’s so many people who appear in front of me and want to blame everyone in sight, except the man in the mirror.

“There’s a very thin line between those who succeed in life and those who don’t. A lot of people who don’t [succeed] come from bad family backgrounds, don’t take advantage of educational opportunities and look to make money in fast, easy ways. Those who succeed own up to their own mistakes and work hard to correct those mistakes.

“A lot of the kids who come through the court system are intelligent and talented in a lot of different ways, but they’re used to people telling them they’re dumb or that they don’t have a future. They just need to be encouraged to accept responsibility for their own conduct. You can complain all you want about the ills of society, or how you didn’t get a break. Ultimately, people don’t care. They’re looking to see what you can accomplish with the talent you have.”

Booker is Exhibit A.

“It changed my life in so many ways, like even being able to sit here right now, getting ready to go fight for these two titles,” Booker said. “A lot of people who don’t know me were saying [I’m] just a boxer who wants to take this fight, the only reason being the money.

“I look at it totally different. I'm like, ‘Wow! I get the opportunity from PBC – and amen for Fundora’s team – to go fight for two world titles and be in front of potentially 200 million subscribers on Amazon Prime Video as I chase my dream, when I could've been in jail.

“So my outlook on life is just totally different.”

Judge White said he’ll be watching on television. A big boxing fan, the judge is in awe of the daunting test, knowing Fundora has a massive 80-inch reach

“[Fundora’s] another mountain to climb – literally and figuratively,” Judge White said. “But you never know in boxing. ‘Cord’ has got to believe in himself, and it doesn’t matter what anyone outside the ring says. It’s about what’s going on in his mind, and his willingness to go for it.

“Win or lose, boxing has brought him a long way.”

Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.