Nick Ball is on the title trail
Undefeated featherweight prospect Nick Ball (13-0, 6KOs) has his sights set on title fights, specifically targeting English titlist Reece Mould and British champ Leigh Wood.
Leigh Wood doesn’t have a mandatory opponent to his British featherweight title yet, but Ball’s Queensberry Promotions stablemate, Louie Lynn, is trying to get his shot by calling out the Nottingham man in recent interviews.
“I’d fight for that British featherweight title tomorrow!” Ball was quick to say. “I know Louie Lynn is calling for the shot and a lot of fights get made that way – on Twitter – by calling each other out.”
English featherweight champion Reece Mould, who was defeated by Wood in his attempt to move up to the British title in his last fight, defends his national honours to Raza Hamza next, meaning Ball has to wait his turn for that belt.
Instead, he looked ahead to pick a winner of that match-up, “I haven’t seen much of that Raza Hamza, so I’d go with Reece Mould to win that. I watched the highlights of the fight with Leigh Wood, Mould was doing well but then just got caught.”
Despite the congestion at 126lbs currently, the 24-year-old is patient enough to wait his turn. “I’d probably just stay at feather, my weight is featherweight, that’s where I’m best suited. Super-bantam is a bit too much of an ask, but that’s ok because I think I’m a real problem at featherweight.”
Ball has fought 13 times within his first three years as a pro, but hasn’t been in the ring for over 10 months now. He went up against 6-0 unbeaten Londoner Jerome Campbell in his last fight in July last year, which he dominated 79-72 on points and even gave his opponent a standing eight-count in the penultimate round.
Despite the hiatus, Ball trains all year round as he expects to get a call from promoter Frank Warren at any given moment, “Probably will just get a call out of the blue, but it’s our job to be ready. Of course, it’s nice to have a bit of notice we’ll take fights at a weeks notice, I don’t really care, I just want to fight, to get as many in as I can and whatever comes, comes.
“Sooner or later they are all going to have to face me, but I’ve just got to be patient and wait. All you can do as the boxer is the fighting, you can push for the fights yourself, but ultimately it’s all up to the promoters.
“I just want to fight to be the best featherweight, to be honest. I do want to start fighting for titles against the likes of others like Louie Lynn, who’s 9-0 and getting title shots; I don’t see why we couldn’t fight for an eliminator.”
Everton Red Triangle
Now that Ball has reached 13-0 and is clearly ready to take the next step up into championship bouts, his training still remains the same at the talent-filled Everton Red Triangle gym.
“I train for world title fight every day anyway, I train at 200% and every session is a learning session, that’s just the way we train. We train all year round, not just for eight weeks.”
Under the guidance of head coach Paul Stevenson, Ball trains alongside fellow Queensberry signings, Andrew Cain and Brad Strand; as well as super-middleweight prospect Harry Woods; and unbeaten talents Jonathan Walsh and Jack McKinlay.
The century-old boxing club also has Olympian Peter McGrail training there as he prepares for the Tokyo Olympics.
Ball has been training with McGrail for many years, who is widely considered to be the most promising amateur in the UK right now.
“Yeah, it’s good in the gym right now because we’re helping Peter McGrail, because he’s got the Olympics in June, so been doing some boss training and sparring, and all pushing each other, so the mood is high,” Ball enthused. “To be honest, Peter is probably one of the best I’ve sparred in terms of all-round boxing ability; his speed is unbelievable, to be honest. I reckon he is going to win the gold 100 per cent.”
About Nick Ball
Nick Ball is a former Junior ABA champion, who won 23 from 25 amateur fights.
Ranked #10 by BoxRec, Ball trains alongside fellow Queensbury Promotions teammates Andrew Cain (6-0, 6KOs) and Brad Strand (4-0, 1KO) at the century-old Everton Red Triangle Gym in Liverpool with head coach, Paul Stevenson.
All three signed contracts with Hall of Fame promoter Frank Warren in February and debuted together on the undercard of Lyndon Arthur’s Commonwealth light-heavyweight title defence to Dec Spelman on July 31 at the BT Sport Studios in London.
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