Boxing results: Nick Ball stops Ronny Rios

Nick Ball (21-0-1, 12 KOs) retained his WBA featherweight title with a tenth-round knockout victory over Ronny Rios (34-5-1, 17 KOs) at the No. 7 position on Saturday night at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, England.

In his first defense of his WBA 126lb title, Ball knocked the 34-year-old Rios out of the ring in the tenth round. Rios’ corner then had the fight stopped as he was helped into the ring by the referee. The time of the stoppage was at 2:06 in the tenth.

To get the knockout, Ball hit Rios with a rabbit punch to stun him, then stomped him hard to force him against the ropes, then unloaded with a flurry of punches to drive him outside the ring.

Rios took a beating in the 10th

Ball pushed the very tired Rios to the corner, then clipped him with a beautiful right hand hook to the back of the head and then unloaded a barrage of punches to knock him out of the ring.

When Rios got back into the ring, it was clear that he was in no shape to continue fighting. He was hurt and tired. Immediately after the fight, Rios left the ring, which is understandable because he took a bad beating.

Rios was dropped by Ball in the third and seventh rounds. The strikeout in the seventh was real pressure, but the umpire blew the call. Surprisingly, Rios got out of the third round because he took a shellacking from Ball.

Rios got his pound of flesh in the fight, bloodied Ball’s nose in the third round, scarred his right eye and landed plenty of hard body shots. Ball looked hurt more than once from the hard blows to the midsection that Rios hit him with in the match. Rios showed that Ball has a vulnerability to taking body shots.

Rios came back in the fourth and fifth to overpower Ball with jabs to his bloody nose and shots to the middle. Ball continued to fight hard, but he wasn’t as effective in those rounds.

Ball fought well in the sixth, pushing Rios full, landing uppercuts, lots of jabs and hooks to the head. He did a lot of shoving and shoulders from Rios, which he obviously should have been warned about. Ball is a rough-and-tumble fighter, so rabbit punches, jabs and other goodies are part of his tools of the trade.

It was a solid performance from 34-year-old Ronny Rios, who was brought in as a voluntary defense for Ball. He was picked from the #7 spot, and of course for Ball to shine, but he gave him a lot of trouble.

This was a tougher fight for Ball than his recent ones against Raymond Ford and Rey Vargas. Ball didn’t take nearly the same kind of punishment in those two fights as he did tonight against Rios, who showed he can punch. Had Rios let his hands go more, Ball would have been in trouble tonight as he was bothered by his body hitting, and his nose was gone to third. You could tell the headers were bothering Ball because of his badly bleeding nose.

Bal’s pollution was out of hand

The ref could have done a better job of policing Nick Ball’s jabs, jabs and shoulders tonight because it was blatant. It was constant. The rush shots were like rain from Ball as it was shocking that the referee didn’t stop the action to issue a warning or take points off.

Ball’s expertise with the illegal rush shots was great, but he should not have been allowed to use this tactic throughout the game. If Rios got in the mud with Ball and started throwing similar shots, it would have been interesting to see what the referee would have done.

“He’s a tough guy, and he came back,” Nick Ball said TNT Sports after the battle. “My nose always goes. You’re going to get a bit of a nosebleed, but that’s what makes a champion. I jumped back.”