By Nate Anderson: BBBofC British bantamweight champion Ian Napa (18-6, 1 KOs) overcame a poor start of the bout on Friday night to come back and defeat EBU (European) bantamweight champion Carmelo Ballone (21-3-1, 10 KOs) by a 12-round majority decision at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, in London. Napa, 30, knocked a tired Ballone down with a right to the body in the 10th round, and won the final 12th round to get the decision. Napa performed poorly in the first six rounds of the fight, failing to let his hands to enough and getting hit a lot by the champion Ballone.
However, in the 7th round Ballone began to tire out, throwing much less punches and moving around more to try and stay away from the now busy Napa. In rounds eight through ten, Napa would control the fight with his constant pressure, good body shots and hard hooks to the head. Ballone was cut over his right eye by a clash of heads, and the cut seemed to bother him a great deal, as he showed concern for it by dabbing at it often. Despite Napa’s knockdown of Ballone in the 10th, the fight was still up for grabs in the final 12th round.
Ballone fought hard but he didn’t have the energy to match Napa’s good work rate in the round, and subsequently lost the round by a narrow margin. Napa was hardly impressive in this round and throughout the fight, showing little power, an uneven work rate and a tendency to get hit a lot. In the large scheme of things, he would probably be destroyed by any current fighter in the top 15.
Ballone, 32, the much bigger fighter than Napa at 5’5, controlled the early rounds of the fight with his long jab, combinations and hard left hand. A southpaw, Ballone circled the round constantly, choosing to fight when and wherever he wanted. It didn’t matter, because Napa was doing next to nothing but following him around and throwing wide hooks with little speed to them. Ballone, however, seemed to be casual about his own defense, keeping both of his hands down by his side and choosing to try and avoid shots by moving his torso front, back and laterally to dodge incoming fire.
It worked for the most part, only because of Napa’s anemic offensive output and his slow hand speed. Napa would land on occasion, though, and had a small swelling showing under Ballone’s left eye by the third round. In the 7th, Ballone suddenly became really tired looking, and chose to get on his bicycle and move as much as possible on the outside. Napa then started getting confident for the first time, and followed him around the ring throwing wide hooks while Ballone retreated.
In the 10th round, Napa nailed with a solid right to the midsection, sending him down to one knee. He got up and lasted out the round, only because Napa chose to go after Ballone’s head and not his body for the remainder of the round. In the 11th round, Ballone fought fell, landing some good left hands as Napa appeared to be taking the round off for some reason.
In the 12th round, Napa, with his corner help encouraging him to fight hard, came out and took the fight to Ballone, and landed some good right hands. Ballone fought back hard but came up short in the end. The final judges’ scores were 114-114, 114-113 and 114-113.
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