Nick Ball vs Isaac Dogboe eliminator reportedly set for November 18th in Manchester
Former super bantamweight champion and current no. 2 WBC featherweight Isaac Dogboe revealed on Twitter yesterday that he’s headed to Manchester for a November 18th final eliminator. Multiple outlets report that, as expected, he’ll face no. 1 Nick Ball.
Rey Vargas currently holds the title, though interim champ Brandon Figueroa presumably has next. That said, it’s been seven months since Vargas tried and failed to win the vacant super featherweight belt and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him, so who knows how that’ll play out.
Ball (18-0, 11 KOs) has been on a tear since beating down Isaac Lowe for the silver belt last year, culminating in a May finish of unbeaten Ludumo Lamati. Lamati subsequently suffered a brain bleed and underwent surgery, though he was thankfully stable and improving as of July.
Dogboe (24-3, 15 KOs) will be heading straight from a failed title shot against Robeisy Ramirez to a new eliminator with a different sanctioning body. “Royal Storm” continues to boast a weirdly resilient career; having lost his 122-pound belt in back-to-back thrashings against Emanuel Navarrete and kicked off his featherweight run by stopping the cooked Chris Avalos, he racked up three straight split/majority decisions to return to title contention and doesn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon.
Should be a solid crossroads scrap, and we’ll pass on the details when we hear them. That said, I do want to point out how weird the WBC featherweight rankings are; behind Dogboe is Mauricio Lara (coming off a one-sided loss), Ruben Villa, and Carlos Castro (1-2 in his last three). Hell, Anselmo Moreno is still in the top 10 despite no good wins in seven years.
