For the fifth time in 17 months, Nick Ball and his trainer, Paul Stevenson, are putting the finishing touches to a world championship training camp.

The 28-year-old Liverpudlian will make the third defence of his WBA featherweight world title against Sam Goodman (20-0, 8 KOs) on the Moses Itauma-Dillian Whyte card Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The event will be streamed on DAZN PPV.

Some fighters slow down once they accomplish their lifelong goal. Ball has accelerated since beating Raymond Ford to win the WBA belt in June of last year.

“It's the same old Nick, same old grind, and can't be bothered with any of the outside stuff,” Stevenson told The Ring. “It's made him just meaner. You know what they say, 'Once you become champion, you just see it on a different level.' He’s had a massive 12 months, or just over.

“He's boxed Rey Vargas and Ford — great experience — and then good fights with Ronny Rios and T.J Doheny. Four brilliant learning fights at world level, one after another. It's just been the making of him, and he's flying in the gym.”

Vargas, Rios and Doheny were experienced, wily fighters who struggled to cope with Ball’s relentless style and underrated, smart pressure fighting.

Like Ford, Goodman is a young, unbeaten boxer who has yet to have the ambition beaten out of him. Stevenson is expecting the undefeated Australian to provide Ball with a solid test.

“It is a good opponent," he said. "When you're selecting voluntary defenses, the list is quite small. Who's available? Who can you pick? Who’s viable for the budget and everything else? He's a good opponent.

“He's a handful. He’s someone who's been right there, due title shots, and they’ve just slipped away from him. He's going to be hungry to take his chance, so I think he'll bring a good fight and a good style to mesh with Nick's as well.”

Despite Ball's success, many observers still tend to focus on his short stature and all-action style and overlook the high level of technique and cleverness it takes to be effective fighting in such a way. Fighters intent on ploughing relentlessly forward don’t tend to reach the level Ball has.

Having spent his career campaigning at junior featherweight, it remains to be seen how Goodman will approach his task, but Stevenson is confident that he and Ball are prepared for all eventualities.

“Nick has a way of making fights his own," he said. "We'll go out and do what we do, and if he tries to box Nick, I don't think anyone who's ever tried to box Nick has had success. He's good at dealing with them.

“Then, if you come and fight with him it's even worse. He's a real problem, Nick, stylistically to cope with. I don't know what to expect, but we're in good shape, and we're ready for it.

“When you have that mindset of understanding that we don't know what to expect because anything can happen, in the training you’ve got to be open to things. We're not locked into one frame of mind, one set of tactics."

At a time when modern media is overrun with videos of pad men running through well rehearsed, unrealistic routines, at least 99% of the work that goes on in Stevenson’s Everton Red Triangle gym remains secret.

The results of Ball’s hard work are only seen when he answers the first bell on fight night and immediately sets about his work.

“In terms of the technical side of things, he's on the rise,” Stevenson said. “You're going to see it from him in this fight. A style like Nick’s is such a pretty one to watch but a tricky one to get right, because you've got to attack and defend at the same time, and you’re doing it against good lads.

“You're not on the negative end of it where he's just trying to capitalize on someone else's work, and he's not on the crazy end of it where he's doing all the work as well. There's somewhere in between.”