NICK BALL LIVERPOOL TITLE DEFENCE ANNOUNCED

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. The card is co-headlined by British and Commonwealth bantamweight champion Andrew Cain going up against the European champion Charlie Edwards in association with Wasserman Boxing’. 

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 and Cuban super featherweight star Jadier Herrera (16-0, 14) will make a defence of his WBA Intercontinental championship belt. Super-flyweight knockout machine Jack Turner (10-0, 9) will fight over 10 rounds.

“This card is literally combustible!” 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.

“Nick Ball, the best featherweight in the world, gets to fight in his home city for the second time as world champion and he is up against a fighter of huge pedigree in TJ Doheny, a former world champion who fought the great Nayoya Inoue over in Japan in September.

“Andrew Cain against Charlie Edwards is the perfect match to make. The British and Commonwealth champion with big world title ambitions going up against a former world champion who is now European champion at bantamweight.

“ We get another opportunity to witness the brilliant Cuban Jadier Herrera in action in his adopted city. Then I am really expecting fireworks from tthe hammer-handed Jack Turner.

“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, with Essex super lightweight Joe Cooper fighting over the same distance, along with the debut-making super welterweight Lewis Lawton from Stoke-on-Trent. Morecambe super featherweight Nelson Birchall will fight over six rounds.

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.

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.

Andrew Cain (13-1, 12) is the British, Commonwealth and WBC Silver bantamweight champion, having taken the British and Commonwealth belts from former champion Ashley Lane via stoppage in July before securing his WBC title against Lazaro Casseres with a second round triumph.

Charlie Edwards (20-1, 7) became WBC world flyweight champion in 2018 with victory over Cristofer Rosales and successfully defended against Angel Moreno the following year when he also took on the challenge of Julio Cesar Martinez, which ended in a no-contest and Edwards subsequently moved up in weight. This year Edwards has won the WBC International Silver title and became European champion with victory over Thomas Essomba in September.

Ball vs Doheny will be broadcast live on TNT Sports in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Tickets go on sale 13.12.24 at 10am on ticketquarter.co.uk