A Hard Days Night
NICK BALL WILL make a second defence of his WBA world featherweight title against former world champion TJ Doheny at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool on Saturday March 15 on a bumper card which is co-headlined by British and Commonwealth bantamweight champion Andrew Cain going up against the European champion Charlie Edwards.
In further major championship action, Brad Strand (12-1, 4 KOs) will take on Ionut Baluta (16-5-1, 3) for the vacant WBO European super bantamweight title.
Super flyweight knockout machine Jack Turner (10-0, 9) will also feature in a major step-up fight soon to be announced.
“This card is literally combustable!” stated Hall of Fame promoter Frank Warren. “There is so much at stake in all the championship fights and every one of them has got all the makings of a cracker.
“We said that we wanted to re-establish Liverpool as a premier destination for the best of boxing and we mean what we say.”
In supporting action, new Liverpool welterweight professional Lucas Biswana will have his second fight over four rounds, along with the debut-making super welterweight Lewis Lawton from Stoke-on-Trent. heavyweight talent Boma Brown will have his sixth fight as pro over six rounds.
What’s at Stake
Besides the obvious, Doheny wants to make Ball eat his words after the WBA world champion accused the Irishman of quitting in his undisputed showdown with Naoya Inoue in September. This led to some spiteful exchanges between the pair at the opening press conference in Liverpool recently.
But words don’t really matter when the bell rings and, for Ball, victory still means everything because he views his first world title as a starting point and not his destination.
He wants to unify the featherweight division and would welcome Inoue to his weight class if the Monster moves up from super bantamweight. Inoue beat Doheny in seven, so can Ball issue a statement with a quicker finish?
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WINS
21
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LOSES
0
-
DRAW
1
-
KOs
12
NickBall
"wrecking"
Nick Ball (20-0-1, 12) will be having his fourth world title fight against TJ Doheny (26-5, 20), having drawn in his opening WBC challenge against Rey Vargas in March, before winning the WBA championship against Ray Ford in June and successfully defending against Ronny Rios in October.
In July 2022, Ball made a first defence of his WBC belt against the tall and dangerous Namibian Nathanael Kakololo. At a huge height disadvantage, Ball set about his opponent from start to finish and finally got a deserved stoppage in the final round.
Then Ball reinforced his brutal message with a quickfire stoppage of the supposedly dangerous Mexican Jesus Ramirez Rubio in London, taking less than two minutes to demolish an opponent with 21 wins to his name.
Ball took on the unbeaten South African Ludumo Lamati in a third defence of his title in Belfast back in May 2023. A tough battle ensued before Lamati was ultimately stopped in the 12th round and unfortunately ended up in hospital after collapsing in the ring.
In November 2023, Ball positioned himself for world honours by overwhelming former world champion Isaac Dogboe in a final eliminator for a shot at the WBC world title.
His big chance came in March when, after a slow start, Ball got the measure of his much taller opponent, champion Rey Vargas, and floored his man twice in the second half of the fight, only for the scorecards to declare a controversial draw.
Less than three months later, Ball was awarded another world title chance against Ford as part of Queensberry’s 5 vs 5 tournament against Matchroom and this time Ball got the verdict he wanted and deserved.
TJ Doheny
"The Power"
Ireland’s Doheny became IBF world super bantamweight champion with a defeat of Ryosuke Iwasa in 2018 and successfully defended against Ryohei Takahashi in early 2019 before losing his title to Daniel Roman. He challenged for undisputed honours in September against Naoya Inoue and is now mounting a challenge at featherweight.
The 38-year-old southpaw resides at Bondi Junction in Sydney, Australia, while he has made a big name for himself in Japan where he has fought on six occasions, including his world title success.
Prior to his defeat to Roman, Doheny successfully defended his IBF world title against Ryohei Takahashi, stopping the Japanese in the 11th round.
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WINS
26
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LOSES
5
-
DRAW
0
-
KOs
20
Plus Full Undercard Featuring
Featherweight
British, Commonwealth & WBC Silver international Featherweight Championship
Super-bantamweight
Vacant WBO European Super-Bantamweight Championship
Lightweight
Welterweight
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