Stuart Hall Outfought By Ian Napa... But Still Wins

By Alexey Sukachev

Stuart Hall (8-0-1, 4 KOs) is a new British bantamweight champion, following a sudden stoppage of fan favorite Ian "Dappa" Napa (19-9, 1 KO) after the eighth round of scheduled twelve, Friday night at the Peterlee Leisure Centre in Peterlee, Tyne and Wear, U.K.

It was a Napa fight beforehand, however. The tiny (5'1'') Zimbabwe native took the first couple of rounds to adjust his defensive and highly elusive half-a-crouch style of boxing to Hall's height and reach advantage.

The fight was though an even coin as Hall did too little to get a considerable advantage in his favor.

Round three was the first which can be scored for the Dappa. Round four was more convincing also in Napa's favor, landing several left hooks that looked better than they were effective. Hall was trying for nothing to land some counters to stop Napa in his tracks, but often coming up empty.

Hall was even less successful in the fifth but came back big in the sixth.

Sensing the fight was slipping out of him, Napa increased his punch output and amazingly added even more elusiveness to his moves to take both the seventh and the eighth stanza. Round eight was huge for the African expatriate who connected with a number of telling blows.

It would turn out to be his last hurrah, as he unexpectedly turned around and conceded defeat without so much as another punch being thrown. Napa went into Hall's corner to congratulate the new British champion with his achievement. "I felt faint in the corner", explained Napa his sudden retirement afterwards.

BoxingScene scored it 78-75 for Napa prior to the stoppage.

Former British Olympian Tony Jeffries (7-0, 5 KOs) continued his rise in ranks after the second-round stoppage of durable kickboxing master Matt Hainy (6-2).

The super middleweight prospect looked raw but was able to drop Hainy twice in the first and got the job done with a monstrous left to the liver at 2:03 of the second. The 168lb weight class got the taste of British power recently with George Groves, James DeGale and now Jeffries notching their name into continental contention.