Promoter Eddie Hearn says he doesn’t like the Naoya Inoue fight for WBA featherweight champion Nick Ball after his tenth round stoppage victory over TJ Doheny last Saturday night at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, England.
How Doheny hit Nick Ball with power shots throughout the fight makes it understandable why Hearn doesn’t like the Inoue fight for Nick. If ‘The Monster’ Inoue were hitting Ball with the same shots, he wouldn’t last long under that firepower.
The Kick Incident
Hearn doesn’t say why he doesn’t like the ‘Monster’ Inoue (29-0, 26 KOs) fight for Ball (22-0-1, 13 KOs), but it could be because he struggled against the 38-year-old TJ Doheny (26-6, 20 KOs) for six rounds of the fight.
Doheny looked like a gem, carving up the miniature 5’2″ Ball, angering him enough to where he kicked him in the first round, and threw him to the canvas twice. Interestingly, Hearn has no problems with Ball kicking TJ in the first round, and he felt that shouldn’t have been a disqualification.
Although it’s common for fighters to be DQ’d when they resort to kicking their opponents to the ground, Hearn feels that shouldn’t have happened in this case. It looked like a hard kick from Ball, and Doheny did NOT look like he was faking when he went down.
Preferential Treatment?
Why should Ball be treated differently from other fighters that kick their opponents hard enough to put them in the dirt? Is his A-side status enough for him to be given preferential treatment?
Hearn says he was surprised that the referee didn’t at least take a point away from Ball for kicking him. He didn’t mention the two body slams Nick did where he threw Doheny to the canvas. Many fans felt there should have been a disqualification on the second body slam, but the referee only took a point.
Again, was Ball being given preferential star treatment? What would the ref have done if Doheny had body slammed Ball twice and kicked him to the canvas? Would he have been shown the same leniency?
If you’re Naoya Inoue, you’ve got to be worried about being potentially kicked by Nick Ball. If the fight has a lenient referee, will Ball get away with kicking Inoue around the ring, and body slamming him left and right?
“I don’t like the fight for Nick Ball, but I like the fight,” said promoter Eddie Hearn to iFL TV about a fight between Naoya Inoue and Nick Ball. “Inoue is going to move up at some point in the division and realize he’s not big enough.
“When I say I don’t like the fight for Nick Ball, I don’t think he wins the fight, but I think he’s a very talented fighter and I think he’s a tough kid,” Hearn continued. “If you’re Nick Ball, you’re thinking now, he’s had solid paydays. He must have got himself in a great position in life and now he can have it off against Inoue.
“Inoue is going to fight [Ramon] Cardenas, and then he’s going to fight [Murodjon] Akhmadaliev. I believe so, yeah. We’re just finalizing that [Inoue vs. Akhmadaliev] now, and then he’s going to fight in Riyadh and that could be against Nick Ball. Obviously, His Excellency [Turki Alalshikh] sure likes Nick Ball as well.
“I don’t think it’s a disqualification,” said Hearn about when Ball kicked Doheny in the first round. “It should have had a point deducted, but I don’t think you can really disqualify someone for that. To be fair to Doheny, he sort of had a roll around football style. I think TJ thought to himself, ‘I can’t mug myself out here. I’ve got to get up.’ The ref saw it.”
