By Nate Anderson: EBU (European) bantamweight champion Ian Napa (18-7, 1 KOs) lost his title on Saturday night in a disappointing 12-round unanimous decision loss to French challenger Malik Bouziane (11-1, 1 KOs) at the Leisure Center, in Newham, London. The final judges’ scores were 115-113, 118-110 and 117-110, all for Bouziane. Using a lot of movement, along with his seven inch height advantage, the 5’8” Bouziane never let Napa get in close enough to make the fight competitive.
Napa, 31, pressured Bouziane throughout the fight, but it wasn’t effective pressure, because he was nailed often coming in. From the outside, Bouziane was able to do pretty much as he pleased, land long right hands, jabs and keep Napa from getting in punching range. As the fight progressed, Bouziane was able to pile up points by winning round after round, making Napa really desperate by the later rounds of the fight.
During this time, Napa forgot all about technique and just bull rushed Bouziane hoping for the best. As you would expect, Bouziane was able to easily pick of Napa on the way in and make him pay for any real estate that he attempted to take. Once Napa was able to get inside, Bouziane didn’t let him get his punches off for long before grabbing him in a clinch and preventing him from punching.
Napa could do little in the fight until the 9th, when Bouziane took the round off and let Napa get in a few shots on the inside. It wasn’t much of a round but it was the only time in the fight that Napa looked halfway decent. In the 10th, 11th and 12th, Bouziane once again began bombing him from a distance and keeping Napa at arm’s length.
Part of Napa’s mistake in the fight was that he was trying to load up with his shots, trying to take out the 31-year-old Bouziane with one shot. However, Napa, who has only one knockout in his career, normally beats his opponents by winning rounds with high volume punching. This wasn’t the case in this fight, with Napa loading up with every shot he threw.
Napa tried getting in close in the first three rounds to land his shots, but after getting hit with a few shots coming in, Napa was easily out-maneuvered by Bouziane by the time he got in close enough to throw a shot.
In the 4th round, Napa’s frustration began to show itself as he started fouling Bouziane by holding him around the neck with his left hand and throwing uppercuts with his right. Napa was warned by the referee for this, but it had no effect on him and he would continue to throw these punches off and on for the remainder of the fight and not get penalized for them.
In rounds five though seven, Bouziane continued his masterful boxing display, moving, jabbing, landing right hands from the distance and clinching Napa when he got to close. In each of these rounds, Napa continued to foul by holding and hitting and subsequently he received a number of warnings by the patient referee.
As it turns out, the hitting and holding was Napa’s punches because his other shots rarely landed and when they did, they had no effect on Bouziane.
Bouziane controlled the action in the 8th, and landed good right hands throughout the round. Like in the other rounds, the movement was a big problem for Napa, because he couldn’t get in close for his shots. In rounds ten through twelve, Bouziane ran away with this fight. He literally ran, jabbed and kept Napa from getting his power shots off.