By Terence Dooley
Ian Napa returned to the top of the British bantamweight rankings by relieving St Helens’ Gary Davies of his British title on the undercard of Jamie Moore versus Ryan Rhodes. Napa delighted the crowd at the Bolton Arena with his excellent defensive skills and outstanding punch picking.
Napa, 31, lost his European title to Malik Bouziane in March but he proved far too good for Davies, 27; the scores of 114-114, 114-115 and 112-116 were not a true reflection of Napa’s performance.
Ian (117lb) took the steam out of Davies’ (117¼lb) attacks using James Toney-style shoulder rolls and snappy counters. Indeed, Napa chipped away at Davies throughout the contest; Napa hammered the younger man with lefts hooks to the body and head, as well as right hands to the chin.
Napa had Davies rocking in the 11th round. I scored the round 10-8 for Ian, he slipped and rolled away from all the incoming fire and his counters were beautifully delivered. By this point the fight was reminiscent of James Toney’s master class against Vassily Jirov.
Going into the final round it was merely a question of whether Gary would see the fight out; however, Napa has only registered one stoppage win in his career, a seventh-round corner retirement win over Lee Haskins, and the diminutive slickster could not put his man away in the final session.
Davies showed a lot of spirit but that is not enough at this level, especially when facing a man with the skills of Napa. Gary falls to 9-3-1 (7 early); the youngster needs to get this one out of his system before returning to the title mix.
Napa is now 19-7 (1); the man from Hackney via Zimbabwe told Boxingscene that the result, and performance, has helped him get the Bouziane reverse out of his system. Napa also shared my belief that he had turned in yet another Toney-esque performance. “That felt good,” declared Napa.
“I’m back in contention. I’ve fought better than that but I did what I had to do. I’ve watched a lot of James Toney, he is my style of boxer and I was watching the Jirov fight not too long ago. It was going through my mind on the day of the fight. But you have to remember that this guy can punch and I was thinking about that when I was doing my boxing.
“I’ve hurt a couple of people and big punchers like him will let off a huge shot when hurt. So I was safety first. My last fight was down to my weight. I did the weight properly this time. Preparing properly paid off. I was fighting a guy with a different style in this one and that paid off as well. I knew he would try to knock me out but I was always aware of those big swings and knew what I had to do.
“I feel I can move onto bigger and better things and that I’m beyond British level. I have to move quickly because I’m getting that bit older! I felt really down after my last fight. I thought I was down and out but I got this title shot and I love holding this British belt. I’ve got no complaints, Gary is a nice guy, we’re going to be friends and I’d help him out by sparring him. I’d give Gary a rematch but I want to move back to the European level. I could have had him out if I was a bit of a bigger guy but that is the way it goes.”
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