Nick Ball (21-0-1, 12 KOs) retained his WBA featherweight title with a 10th round stoppage over 7-ranked Ronny Rios (34-5-1, 17 KOs) on Saturday night at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool. in England.
In his first defense of his WBA 126-lb title, Ball knocked the 34-year-old Rios out of the ring in the tenth round. Rios’ corner then stopped the fight as he was helped by the referee to return to the ring. The stoppage time was 2:06 for the tenth.
To get the knockout, Ball rabbit punched Rios to stun him, then shoved him hard to force him into the ropes, then unleashed a flurry of punches to knock him out of the ring.
Rios won in the 10th
Ball had pushed a tired Rios into the corner, then cut him with a nice right hand rabbit fist to the back of the head, then unloaded more punches to get him out of the ring.
When Rios returned to the ring, it was clear that he was in no condition to continue fighting. He was hurt and tired. Immediately after the fight, Rios left the ring, which is understandable because he was badly beaten.
Rios was knocked out in the third and seventh rounds. The seventh knockdown was a real push, but the referee called it. Surprisingly, Rios won in the third round because he took a shellacking from Ball.
Rios got his pound of flesh in the fight, bleeding Bhola’s nose in the third round, tagging his right eye, and firing a number of hard body shots. On more than one occasion, Ball looked hurt from the heavy hitting to mid-section that Rios hit him with in the tournament. Rios showed that Ball is vulnerable to body shots.
Rios came back in the fourth and fifth to get the better of the ball with a bump on his bloody nose and a mid-range shot. Ball continued to fight hard, but he was not successful in those rounds.
The ball was well fought in the sixth, Rios was crowded, reaching the top, many rabbit punches, and hooks to the head. He did a lot of pushing and grabbing Rios, who obviously should have been warned. Ball is a roughhouse fighter, so rabbit punches, shoves, and the like are part of his tools of the trade.
It was a great performance by 34-year-old Ronny Rios, who was brought to the defense voluntarily by Ball. He was picked in the #7 spot, and it’s clear that Ball will shine, but he gave him a lot of problems.
This was a tougher fight for Ball than his recent bouts against Raymond Ford and Rey Vargas. Ball didn’t face the same kind of punishment in those two fights as he did tonight against Rios, who showed he can punch. If Rios had let his hands go too far, Ball would have been in trouble tonight because he was bothered by his body shots, and his nose was gone after the third. You could see that Bhola’s headaches were bothering him because of his bad nose bleeding.
Ball Fouling was over
The referee could have done a better job of handling Nick Ball’s rabbit punches, shuffling and shouldering tonight because it was so blunt. It was constant. The rabbit shots were like rain from the ball and it was shocking that the referee did not stop the action to give a warning or give a score.
Ball’s skill with illegal rabbit shots was good, but he shouldn’t have been allowed to use this trick for the rest of the tournament. If Rios had stepped into the mud with the ball and started shooting the same, it would have been interesting to see what the referee would have done.
“He’s a tough guy, and he’s back,” Nick Ball told TNT Sports after the fight. “My nose is always running. You’ll get a little nosebleed, but that’s what makes a champion. I went back.”
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