Nick Ball stops TJ Doheny to retain WBA featherweight title

Nick Ball’s pressure was just too much for TJ Doheny, plus more from Liverpool!

Nick Ball’s relentless pressure was just too much for a tough TJ Doheny, with Ball retaining his WBA featherweight title when Doheny’s corner stopped the fight after 10 rounds in Liverpool, England.

Ball (22-0-1, 13 KO) treated Doheny with real respect in the first half of the fight, especially, which shouldn’t really be a surprise, as while Doheny is past his prime years at 38, the veteran southpaw is still a cagey, dangerous fighter with good power and nice timing, especially early.

But Doheny (26-6, 20 KO) wore down, and Ball started bringing his normal heat, which the Irish vet just couldn’t deal with as the rounds wore on. The 10th round was really just Ball battering Doheny, who was incredibly tough and stayed on his feet and all, but the corner gave him that round and then had seen enough, which was a very reasonable call on their part, there was just no way for him to get back into that fight.

This could be the end of the line, or at the very least quite near it, for Doheny, who has now lost two straight to Naoya Inoue and Ball, and there would be no shame in the former 122 lb titleholder going out with losses to arguably the best fighter in the sport and a streaking, indomitable younger man who has staked his claim as a top featherweight in today’s boxing world.

As for Ball, he rolls on with the WBA belt, and hopefully we’ll get to see him go after unification or some other big fight by the end of the year, and he does stand as a potential top option should Naoya Inoue look to move up yet again in weight come 2026, a fight he’s repeatedly said he’d like.

Undercard results

Super flyweight prospect and Liverpool local favorite Jack Turner thrashed his way past veteran Ryan Farrag, scoring a second round TKO victory to improve to 11-0 (10 KO). It’s hard to know if Turner, 23, really has The Goods yet at higher levels, but the kid is enthusiastically violent and comes to fight, and Farrag (23-6, 6 KO) is no joke or anything; at 37, he’s past his very best days, sure, but he’s been around a while and that was only the second time he’s been stopped.

Andrew Cain kept the British and Commonwealth bantamweight titles with a split decision win over Charlie Edwards, in a fight that was truly awful to watch, with Edwards (20-2, 7 KO) doing everything he could to fully avoid any physical interaction with Cain (14-1, 12 KO) — and, well, he succeeded.

Two judges scored it for Cain on tallies of 115-114 and 116-112, while the third had Edwards winning, 115-113. Bad Left Hook quit scoring the fight around the eighth round, because it wasn’t a fight worth paying that much attention to, quite honestly.

From the CompuBox analysis and stats:

Both combatants missed 75% of their punches. Neither fighter landed more than 9 punches in a round. In only one round (the twelfth) were they separated by more than 4 landed punches.

I think it is easy to understand how judges saw this as close, because Cain wasn’t very good, either.

I mean, look, these official Brand accounts will lie to your face about a fight being good — remember when the Showtime Sports account pretended Easter vs Barthelemy wasn’t a travesty? — but not this time. Let us never speak of this fight again unless it is to groan at the idea of seeing Charlie Edwards’ next fight.

Cuban lightweight Jadier Herrera improved to 17-0 (15 KO) with a seventh round stoppage of Jose Macias (21-4-2, 8 KO), but it was a performance that may draw some mixed reviews. Herrera clearly had Macias out-gunned in this one, not just in firepower but skills, but he ate a lot of clean shots in the early going, and the game Macias did his best in there with his limited skill set.

It was never really a danger of Herrera losing, but you only had to listen to head trainer Joe McNally in his corner to understand the frustration of Herrera’s performance. He did the job, absolutely, but if you’re projecting him at world level in the near future, there are a lot of holes. This may be someone worth taking the time, but then it becomes a question of whether or not he really improves fighting over-matched foes, and whether or not he’ll really understand what’s lacking when every fight is basically easy for him. It’s a tough spot for any trainer or management team, really.

Ionut Baluta picked up a split decision win over Brad Strand, improving the Romanian’s pretty strong record against British and Irish opponents over his career, though this one was a bit of a surprise. Strand won one card, 97-93, and Baluta took the other two, 96-94 and 98-91, and it’s that 98-91 card that is the strangest of the lot.

I think you can argue 7-3 Strand and you can possibly argue 6-4 Baluta, who did score a debatable knockdown at one point, if you’re really swayed by forward movement. But personally I had it 96-93 Strand and I thought he won the fight pretty solidly, and that Baluta kinda got away with one here. Baluta is now 17-5-1 (3 KO), while Strand falls to 12-2 (4 KO).