By Declan Taylor
RAY FORD is prepared to make featherweight one more time in order to face Nick Ball as part of the Matchroom v Queensberry event on June 1.
Ford won the WBA featherweight title in the most dramatic fashion earlier this month, when he trailed on the cards heading into the final round but stopped Otabek Kholmatov with just seven seconds remaining.
The Camden, New Jersey native had battled hard with the scales to even make the weight for the fight and suggested after the victory that he would move up to 130lbs without ever defending his new belt.
However, Ford has now revealed to Boxing News that he is willing to make the tortuous journey to 126lbs if it secures the fight against Ball on the June 1 Riyadh card, when his promoter Eddie Hearn will go head to head with long-term rival Frank Warren.
Ford said: “If it’s a fast turnaround where I hurry up and get right back in the ring I think I can do one more at featherweight. It has to be the right fight, it has to make sense and it’s got to be worth the right money for me to make the weight again.
“So the Nick Ball fight is definitely still possible. It would be my first time in Saudi Arabia so I’d look forward to experiencing that. Nick Ball is somehow ranked ahead of me, I don’t know how but he is.
“He is still an undefeated fighter and I’d love to become the first person to beat him. I’d also love to be on the 5 vs 5 Matchroom v Frank Warren. It would be another great night for Matchroom Boxing and I know Eddie Hearn would be happy and proud to go up against his rival and beat one of their fighters.
“It makes sense. It’s a good turnaround for me to get right back in the ring, it’s another good fighter in front of me. He’s just come out of a world title fight and some argue he won the fight. I think it would be a good fight.”
There had been hopes that a clash between Ford and Ball would be a unification however the Liverpudlian’s challenge for Rey Vargas’ WBC title ended in a controversial draw in Saudi Arabia on the Anthony Joshua v Francis Ngannou undercard.
Warren was incensed by the judges’ decision given it had appeared that Ball, who dropped Vargas twice, had done enough to secure the win and therefore the world title.
Ford said: “I wasn’t really scoring it but from what I was seeing I think Vargas won the first six or seven rounds but then he died out. Nick Ball started picking up on him and breaking him down. I think one of the knockdowns wasn’t legit. It was a weird fight kinda, it could have gone either way.
“But now, for me, it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t got the belt. If I can defend my belt before I move up it will feel like job done for me at featherweight.”
