The WBA featherweight champion brushed off repeated references to Figueroa having more than a thousand punches in that fight, saying the number only exists if it is allowed. Ball’s view is simple. Output is shaped by what the opponent allows, and he’s not about to give Figueroa the same room that Gonzalez did.
Ball treated the statistic as specific to that fight. According to him, that says more about the kind of night Joet Gonzalez had than anything that automatically carries over into the next one. He made it clear that he was not looking to learn from another opponent’s experience.
The concern, as Ball sees it, is not how many punches are thrown, but how often they are answered. He has built his title run on engaging fighters who commit and make them work every time they step forward. His comments suggest that he expects to interrupt rhythm rather than accommodate it. From Ball’s point of view, the score only matters if nothing comes back.
That outlook says a lot about how Ball views the fight itself. He’s not talking about dispelling spells or pacing himself to survive stretches of pressure. He talks about control. By downplaying raw totals, Ball makes it clear that he expects to influence where exchanges happen and how long they last, rather than settling into a pattern set by someone else.
Brandon Figueroa approaches things from a different place. He leaned on preparation and confidence in his approach, pointing to previous nights where he was able to work steadily without being forced off his line. Those performances relied on opponents absorbing pressure without consistently making him pay for it. Ball has been adamant that he has no intention of playing that role.
The exchange goes beyond routine trust. Ball doesn’t dismiss Figueroa as a threat. He rejects the idea that recent bump counts carry authority on their own. In doing so, he pushed the discussion away from accumulation and towards resistance, timing and reaction.
Saturday will determine whether Figueroa can force the kind of fight his recent numbers suggest, or whether Ball’s belief in keeping that rhythm short holds. Until then, Ball’s position is clear. What happened against someone else remains there, and he has no interest in becoming a continuation of it.
