{"id":59873,"date":"2025-08-11T19:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T19:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59873\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T19:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T19:27:08","slug":"nick-balls-toughest-test-or-easiest-payday-sam-goodman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59873\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Ball’s “Toughest Test” Or Easiest Payday? Sam Goodman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Ball is calling Sam Goodman as his \u201ctoughest test\u201d of his career going into their 12-round co-feature clash this Saturday, August 16th on DAZN PPV<\/a> in Riyadh. Ball (22-0-1, 13 KOs) is defending his WBA featherweight title against Goodman (20-0, 8 KOs), a fighter that he chose from the super bantamweight division to defend against.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going to be coming. He\u2019s unbeaten. He\u2019s got this big opportunity, and he\u2019s going to be wanting to become a world champion and take what I\u2019ve got [WBA featherweight title] off me, and it\u2019s not happening. So, it\u2019s going to be an exciting one,\u201d said Nick Ball to Boxing New<\/a>s about his fight against Sam Goodman on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Goodman: 122-pounder, Not 126<\/p>\n

The real question is, why did Ball choose Goodman as his opponent? He\u2019s a super bantamweight, not a featherweight, and he\u2019s not viewed as one of the talented fighters from the 122-lb division. If the idea was for Ball to comb that weight class for his challenger, why didn\u2019t he select Ramon Cardenas? At least that guy can punch and would have a shot at beating him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he is, isn\u2019t he? He is the toughest test because he\u2019s the next one in line. You can\u2019t look past him. That\u2019s one gone [38-year-old TJ Doheny]. So, this is the next one,\u201d said Ball.<\/p>\n

Who is Ball kidding? Sam Goodman isn\u2019t his \u201ctoughest test\u201d of his career. This is a cherry-pick like his last two fights against the old veteran, TJ Doheny, and 34-year-old Ronny Rios.<\/p>\n

Goodman can\u2019t punch and is a super bantamweight just like Ball\u2019s two previous opponents, Doheny and Rios, whom he selected to defend his WBA featherweight title against. Ray Ford is Ball\u2019s toughest career test to date, with Rey Vargas coming in as a close second.<\/p>\n

Vargas Fight\u2019s True Outcome<\/p>\n

\u201cBad feeling. Robbed,\u201d said Ball about his failure to get the victory against WBC featherweight champion Rey Vargas in March 2024.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Ball is still bitter about the results of his fight against Vargas, despite him being gifted a 12-round draw in that fight. He should have lost the fight. Ball hasn\u2019t let go and is in denial about what actually happened in that fight. Vargas won in the true sense, but the referee\u2019s blown call on a knockdown in the eighth resulted in the fight being scored as a draw.<\/p>\n

The fight Ball is referring to is his title challenge against WBC featherweight champion Rey Vargas last year on March 11, 2024, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It was scored by the judges as a 12-round draw, with the scores 114-112 for Vargas, 113-113, and 116-110 for Ball.<\/p>\n

Many of Ball\u2019s fans believe he deserved to be given the victory because he had dropped Vargas twice, putting him down in rounds eight and eleven. However, Ball roughly shoved Vargas down, and as he was falling, he punched him.<\/p>\n

It clearly wasn\u2019t a knockdown, but the referee, Giovanni Poggi, ruled it as a knockdown. If you take away the bogus pushdown by Ball, Vargas should have won the fight. As such, it was NOT a \u201crobbery.\u201d On the contrary, it was a fight that should have gone to Vargas.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Boxing News 24<\/a> \u00bb Nick Ball\u2019s \u201cToughest Test\u201d or Easiest Payday? Sam Goodman<\/p>\n

Last Updated on 08\/11\/2025 \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Ball is calling Sam Goodman as his \u201ctoughest test\u201d of his career going into their 12-round co-feature…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,32415,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-59873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-leigh-dawney-queensberry-promotions-nick-ball-tj-doheny-fight-night-ms-bank-arena-liverpool","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}