Dave Oakes previews Friday night's Sky Sports show featuring the British bantamweight title clash between champion Ian Napa and challenger Jamie McDonell.

Ian Napa defends his British bantamweight title this Friday when he takes on Jamie McDonnell at the Brentwood Centre, Essex. Napa already has a European title fight lined up, a bout against the decent Jerome Arnould is pencilled in for March 6, but he can’t afford to take his eye off the ball here.

McDonnell, whilst still young and inexperienced, could provide Napa with a stern test if he uses his considerable height and reach advantages to their maximum effect. That said, many fighters have had those advantages over Napa before and it’s certainly not something Napa will be losing any sleep over.

This will be Napa’s eleventh title fight (his record is a deceptive 6-4 in previous title bouts), meaning he has a wealth of experience at this level compared to McDonnell’s solitary title fight – a narrow points defeat against Chris Edwards down at super-flyweight. McDonnell could have won that night but allowed himself to be outworked by the tough Stokie late on.

Napa knows that a slip-up here would derail his chance of regaining the European belt that he lost so meekly against Malik Bouziane early last year. He rebounded well from that defeat by beating Gary Davies to claim the British title. Napa looked to be back to his best that night, out-hustling Davies with his razzle-dazzle style, although the scorecards were surprisingly close at the end.

I believe McDonnell will be a game opponent - he’s looked confident in the build-up – but I don’t think he’s got the know-how to beat Napa. I can see McDonnell starting the quicker of the two and enjoying a bit of success in the first couple of rounds, but Napa will find a way of moving in and out of range without getting tagged and will start to boss proceedings from the halfway point.

McDonnell’s defence isn’t watertight and he could find the later rounds a struggle if Napa uses his accurate body punching to wear him down. If Napa’s on top form, he should win via a comfortable points decision.

The undercard sees the undefeated Ashley Sexton take on Usman Ahmed for the English flyweight title. Ahmed is a decent operator and showed great character in a losing British title challenge to Chris Edwards last year.

Sexton has blown hot and cold thus far in his career but looks to have plenty of raw potential to work with. Ahmed should be a nice step-up in class for Sexton and I believe he’ll respond with an impressive performance. Conventional wisdom says Sexton should win on points but I think he’ll be really fired up for this fight and will get a stoppage victory late on.

e-mail Dave Oakes