Nick Ball is being raked over the coals by fans for choosing super bantamweight contender Sam Goodman as his next challenger for him to defend his WBA featherweight title against on August 16th on DAZN PPV.
Sam Goodman Fight Backlash
Ball (22-0-1, 13 KOs) is viewed by some fans as the worst type of champion since winning the WBA 126-lb belt in June 2024 with a victory over Raymond Ford.
Since winning the WBA belt, Ball has defended against consecutive 122-pounders against TJ Doheny and Ronny Rios. Now, he’s choosing another super bantamweight, Sam Goodman 20-0, 8 KOs), to defend his WBA featherweight belt against.
Turki Alalshikh should have informed Nick Ball that for him to fight on his August 16th card in Riyadh, he needed to fight one of the highly ranked, well-respected fighters from the featherweight division, NOT another fighter from the super bantamweight division.
Ideal Picks:
- Bruce Carrington
- Otabek Kholmatov
- Angelo Leo
Avoiding Top Featherweight Contenders?
Some fans believe Ball is purposefully fighting weak opposition chosen from the 122-lb division to hold onto his WBA featherweight belt long enough to get a fight against Japanese star Naoya Inoue when he moves up to the 126-lb division in a year or two.
Fighting lesser fighters like 38-year-old TJ Doheny, weak-punching Goodman, and the 34-year-old Rios ensures that Ball will keep his WBA title until Inoue moves up for that big payday.
“If he wants a shot, he has to be careful about how he’s going about it because he might not get that shot,” said Nick Ball to the Ring magazine channel, reacting to #2-ranked WBA contender Bruce Carrington saying that his team had already made an offer to fight him and not heard back.
Milking the WBA Title
Ball is essentially saying he’ll use Carrington’s talk as a reason to avoid fighting him, which is bad on his part. Nick has already skipped past Bruce in the title defenses he’s made since winning the WBA belt. Thus far, Ball’s two defenses have come against these fighters:
- TJ Doheny: A 38-year-old who was pulled from the super bantamweight [122-lb] division to be used as his challenger.
- Ronny Rios: Another fighter who recently moved up from 122 to the featherweight division. He was not viewed as worthy of fighting for the WBA world title against Ball. The selection of Rios was seen as another way for Nick to extend his time as the champion by milking it.
“Everyone is speaking about it, everyone wants it to happen,” said Ball about a fight between him and Naoya Inoue. “I’ll fight anyone. So, that’ll be an exciting one when it happens.
Last Updated on 08/01/2025
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