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<\/p>\nWBA featherweight champion Nick Ball returns to his home city of Liverpool on Saturday, taking on Brandon Figueroa.<\/p>\n
The fight will be Ball’s fourth title defence since he beat Ray Ford to clinch the belt in 2024.<\/p>\n
A huge and passionate crowd is expected in Liverpool, but Figueroa, a former two-weight world champion, will be out to spoil the party.<\/p>\n
Ball spoke to media ahead of the fight discussing what he thinks will be his advantage in the bout and fighting in front of friends and family.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There’s a few fighters from Liverpool, including yourself, on this card. Jazza Dickens is now a world champion too. You must be proud to have such a solid group of fighters coming from the city right now?<\/p>\n
Ball: “Yeah, 100%, You’ve only got to look at this show, haven’t you, to see all the fighters on it and all the Scousers on it who are going to be fighting out of the city. So, it’s a massive fight in the city and we should be proud that we’re doing what we’re doing. It’s good times, isn’t it?”<\/p>\n
Nick Ball is the WBA featherweight champion.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n
Do you feel any pressure headlining a card like this in your hometown?<\/p>\n
Ball: “Yeah, there’s definitely always pressure there, but it’s good pressure. It’s what you do with the pressure, use it to your advantage and perform at your best under it. If you’re a top fighter, you can handle it. It’s always good because there’s pressure, you pray for it your whole life. It’s mad when you are on the way up, selling tickets to fight in the nightclubs and sports centres.<\/p>\n
“You’re looking at people on these big shows in the [M&S Bank] Arena in Liverpool, selling them out, wishing you were on them, wishing that you were main event on them type of shows. So now that you’ve got it, it is a good feeling.”<\/p>\n
This is going to be your fourth title defence … Brandon is an elite opponent, but are you getting itchy feet waiting for unification bouts? <\/p>\n
Ball: “Yeah, my sights are set on Saturday, but yeah, they’re the fights I want to be in to get a new belt. I’ve defended my belt now three times, this is going to be the fourth. So yeah, after that I think they’re the fights to make, big unification fights against the other champions, so hopefully that can happen.”<\/p>\n
Ball (L) is accustomed to fighting taller opponents.\u00a0Peter Byrne\/PA Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n
On your opponent, he’s pretty tall for this division … It’s something you’re used to; how do you use that to your advantage?<\/p>\n
Ball: “It’s all my advantage. I don’t mind punching up. I’ve been punching up my whole life, my whole career, so punching down, maybe it could be more draining [for him].<\/p>\n
“But I understand he’s good at fighting people who are small as well, but I’m going to show ’em … I’m not like any of those people. I am stronger than what I look. It’s going to be an exciting one.”<\/p>\n
What could Brandon bring that you might not have seen before?<\/p>\n
Ball: “I don’t really know until I get in there with him. Everyone keeps telling me he comes forward to fight, he’s good body puncher, he’s tall, but I’ve seen it before, haven’t I? I’ve been in with tall fighters, good body punchers.<\/p>\n
“Every fight’s different, every opponent’s different, isn’t it? He hasn’t been in there with no one like me in Liverpool city. Obviously, he probably doesn’t care where it is, but I can guarantee he hasn’t been in there with no one like me, so it will be a good one.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WBA featherweight champion Nick Ball returns to his home city of Liverpool on Saturday, taking on Brandon Figueroa.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-462667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}