Frank Maloney Boxing: Napa Must Travel For Euro Glory

Ian Napa must travel to France if he wants to regain the European bantamweight title, but must beat Jamie McDonnell next week.

The slick Hackney boxer, 31, risks his British bantamweight title defence against McDonnell at Brentwood Centre on Friday January 22.

If ‘Dapa’ Napa (19-7) beats the Yorkshireman he will challenge Jerome Arnould for the vacant Euro championship in France on Saturday March 6.

Purse bids for the Arnould contest were due to be held next week, but Napa’s manager/promoter Frank Maloney agreed terms with the Frenchman’s backers.

He said: “It was a reasonable offer so we decided to take the risk and travel.

“The other problem I had if I went to purse bids and won I would not being able to stage the bout until the end of April because I have so many champions to keep busy with my booked TV dates.

“The EBU would not allow the fight to be delayed that long and Ian would have risked losing his nomination.”

Although terms to face Arnould have been agreed, Maloney promised that Napa would not overlook McDonnell (12-2-1).

Maloney added: “Ian knows that if he lost to McDonnell the Arnould fight would be off.

“Before he speaks about Arnould, let’s get what is a very tough British title defence out of the way.”

Napa lost the European title last March when he was outpointed by another Frenchman Malik Bouziane.

On the Brentwood bill Cheshunt’s cocky Ashley Sexton (8-0) faces fellow extrovert Usman Ahmed (6-2-1) in a clash for the vacant English flyweight championship.

Maloney’s heavyweight Larry Olubamiwo (6-1) moves up a notch when he boxes Irish puncher Scott Belshaw (10-3).

Tickets for this top class show, priced £80 and £35 are available on line www.frankmaloney.com or by calling 0871 2261508. Follow Maloney Promotions on Facebook and watch highlights of all our shows on our You Tube channel maloneypromotions.