Ball vs Figueroa: Date, fight time, undercard, how to watch, prediction, ring walks and odds

The highly-entertaining Liverpool favourite is back on Merseyside as he puts his WBA featherweight belt on the line in what could be a very tricky test indeed against a former two-division world champion.

It is the fourth defence of the gold that ‘Wrecking Ball’ won by outpointing Raymond Ford in a thriller in Riyadh back in the summer of 2024, a bout that formed part of Frank Warren and Queensberry’s 5-0 thrashing of Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing in the inaugural 5v5 card and came just three months after he had been hard done by to miss out on the WBC title at 126lbs in a controversial split-decision draw with Rey Vargas.

Ball (23-1-0, 13 KOs) kicked out and had a point deducted for pushing during his dramatic 11th-round win over Ireland’s TJ Doheny in Liverpool, having also floored Ronny Rios three times during his first defence en route to a late stoppage.

The 28-year-old has since been pushing to unify at featherweight and targeted the likes of IBF champion Angelo Leo and WBO title-holder Rafael Espinoza, while he has also been called out already by Bruce ‘Shu Shu’ Carrington, who picked up the WBC belt by knocking out Carlos Castro on the Teofimo Lopez vs Shakur Stevenson undercard at Madison Square Garden last weekend.

Ball has also been mentioned as a potentially difficult opponent for pound-for-pound great Naoya Inoue, who could move up to featherweight in future but is first expected to face Japanese rival Junto Nakatani in a super-bantamweight mega-fight later in 2026.

Instead it’s Figueroa (26-2-1, 19 KOs) next, the American former WBA and WBC super-bantamweight and WBC featherweight champion, who lost his belts in two defeats to Stephen Fulton that were more than four years apart.