Liverpool Bouncing for Ball

On Saturday night we concluded the final chapter of our story with TNT Sports at the M&S Bank Arena, which was bouncing to the tune of Nick Ball successfully completing a second defence of his WBA world featherweight title.

The magical fight nights in Liverpool are very much on the way back now, led by young Nick, who powered his way to victory over TJ Doheny in the main event.

To my mind, Nick is the best featherweight in the business, bar none. And he is getting better all the time. With the obvious exception of the fiery exchange at the end of the first, he is showing more control and patience in his work.

He broke TJ down bit by bit, easing - or rather thudding - his way through the gears before his man could take no more at the end of the 10th. Credit to TJ who really is one tough customer.

Nick can now carry on making Liverpool his fortress because he wants to remain busy and we will deliver for him and the rest of our Scouse contingent, who really are a formidable bunch.

When we made Andrew Cain against Charlie Edwards I thought we had the prospect of a genuine cracker. Yes, Charlie is the more technical and elusive type, but we all felt the clash of styles would deliver something special.

That is the business we are in, to make fights that progress the careers of our fighters and to appeal to and entertain the fans, both in the arena and at those watching at home.

From what I could tell, I think most people were particularly looking forward to this one.

Unfortunately, what we got, can only generously be described as a stinker, certainly in terms of entertainment. I can’t and won’t put a gloss on it because we all saw the same fight.

The only real upside is that Andrew won - remarkably via a split decision - he can now move on towards world title contention.

Thankfully, for the rest of us, we had Jack Turner to liven up proceedings before the main event. I am very excited by what this young man brings and he is going to be another mainstay of our Liverpool menu.

He was up against an experienced champion in Ryan Farrag, who recently won the Commonwealth title, but Jack brutally brushed him aside in not much more than three and a half minutes. His power, for a super flyweight, is astonishing. He may look like a little choirboy, but I certainly wouldn’t ask him to sing a hymn!

His teammate at the Rotunda Gym, Jadier Herrera, is also the crowd-pleasing type and his win over Jose Macias Enriquez had a bit of everything. The Cuban, who counts Liverpool as home now, started off like a train then, on being told to calm it down a bit, took himself into slick cruise control, before striking a balance and forcing a stoppage.

He is an exciting and exceptional fighter and I can see him mixing it with the very best of the lightweight division in the near future.

I strongly believe Brad Strand can count himself as unfortunate not to have got the decision against Ionut Baluta. I thought he did more than enough good work throughout the fight, boxing smartly and effectively repelling the advances of the always forward-marching Romanian.

Even with the wrongly-called knockdown, where Baluta plonked his foot on Brad’s to cause the fall, and a wildly wide card from the Hungarian judge, I felt Brad would still get the nod, but it was not to be and it is a bitter pill for Brad to swallow.  We won’t let this affect Brad and we will bring him back with no backward steps taken.

So our journey with TNT Sports, formerly BT Sport, is now at its end. It began in April 2017 up in Manchester with a card headed up by the first meeting of Liam Smith and Liam Williams, plus Terry Flanagan defending his world title. Notably, the show also included the professional debuts of both Daniel Dubois and Nicola Adams.

Over the eight years we got boxing off the ground on the network, established some great relationships at every level and delivered some massive nights.

Now we are off to pastures new at DAZN from April 5 when we start off again in Manchester. The vision at DAZN is to put boxing first and foremost and to make it bigger and better, which aligns perfectly with our own philosophy.

A new and exciting chapter awaits.