Nick Ball is a man of action rather than words.

The 45 minutes or so that the WBA featherweight champion got to spent in the ring with TJ Doheny on Saturday night gave the 28-year-old Liverpudlian a welcome break from a seemingly endless and tiresome stream of questions about undisputed and Ring Magazine super-bantamweight champion, Naoya Inoue.

Last September, former IBF super-bantamweight champion Doheny (26-6, 20 KOs) boxed Inoue and acquitted himself reasonably well before pulling out early in the seventh round citing a back injury.

Saturday night’s title defence gave Ball (22-0-1, 13 KOs) the ideal opportunity to better Inoue’s performance and push his claim that he should head the welcoming committee when the Japanese superstar makes his seemingly inevitable move to 126lbs.

As fight week progressed, Ball patiently shut down and batted away every mention of a potential meeting with a man who isn’t even in his weight division, preferring to concentrate on the task at hand.

As soon as he stepped out of the ring after spending ten rounds breaking down the exceptionally tough Irishman, the questions started again.

Given his business with Doheny was concluded and a second successful title defence in the books, The Ring's No. 3 ranked featherweight appeared far more willing to broach the subject.

“Yeah, Inoue who they're all speaking about me fighting,” he told Queensberry when asked if he knew who the only other person to have stopped Doheny was.

"I think it's gonna make for a good fight. He gets in there and pushes everyone else back a bit like myself but I won’t allow that when he’s in there with me and I’ll show it.

“It’s pointless saying that now on camera. Like I’ve always said from day one, the only way we’ll find out is by getting the fight on so let’s make it happen.”