Price was tipped to be the next big heavyweight star of British boxing, but after several defeats his career hangs in the balance.
Once upon a time, David Price was the next big superstar set to emerge from British heavyweight boxing. He won bronze medal at the 2008 Olympic Games and had a good amateur pedigree with a 75-15 record. In 2012, ESPN voted Price as their ‘Prospect of the Year’ when he was 15-0 with 13 knockouts. His big knockout punching power cannot be questioned; he has floored many of his opponents. At this stage of his career back in 2012, he had knocked out John McDermott (who was controversially beaten by Tyson Fury on points before Fury knocked him out in the rematch), Sam Sexton, Audley Harrison and Matt Skelton. Many felt that Fury was even avoiding a fight with Price such was his reputation as a heavy puncher. Whether Fury was avoiding a fight with Price we do not know, however it goes to show how much hype that was building around Price, the 6ft 8in 250-pounds boxer from Liverpool.
Fast forward to 2018, and Price has just suffered his 5th career knockout loss to the Russian Alexander Povetkin. In fairness to Price, he deserves a lot of credit for this performance. After suffering major disappointments in his career following 2 knockout losses to Tony Thompson, Erkan Teper and Christian Hammer, Price knew that in terms of world level competition this was a last-chance saloon for him. Price had the opportunity to face Povetkin on the undercard of Anthony Joshua vs Joseph Parker at Cardiff’s Principality stadium. He openly admitted that he could either lose or win the fight and would simply give it all that he had. His conditioning was far better for this fight than had been for many fights, trimming down to 18st 2lbs, compared to when he fought Hammer in February 2017 where he weighed close to 20st. He got dropped in the 3rd round, but composed himself and got back up, and cracked a lovely left hook on Povetkin’s chin to send him flying to the corner. Povetkin didn’t go down but received a standing count. Unfortunately for Price, he dropped his hands in the 5th round and got caught with a clean shot by Povetkin and was then floored by him. It was the latest in a series of disappointments in Price’s career but knew with this fight that he gave a valiant effort and did show improvements in his defence and combination punching.
Where did it go wrong?
Price now has a record of 22-5 with 18 knockouts. Whilst this is nothing to sniff at (even getting in a boxing ring in the first place shows huge amount of guts) the hype surrounding him was that he was to be the next heir to the Klitschko throne. Unfortunately, he has fallen well short of this. Although Price does have excellent power in his left and right hands, several factors have stopped him from taking his career to the highest levels. His stamina, confidence and ability to take a shot have been key issues throughout his career. When he was hit with big shots from Tony Thompson in their first bout, he was not able to handle the pressure and struggled to contain him. Although he was mentally tough enough to set a rematch against him straight away, he went into this fight without the confidence that he once had and crumbled again under the pressure. Furthermore, his lack of stamina has also contributed to his knockout losses. He struggles to keep up the tempo once it starts to get to the middle rounds and ultimately ends up gassing, leading to the referee jumping in and stopping Price from any further damage.
Another issue for Price, which in fairness is not his fault whatsoever, is that he has been the victim of drug cheats. Tony Thompson tested positive for hydrochlorothiazide following their rematch, a masking agent for helping boxers to use diuretics to lose weight for a bout. Thompson claims he ingested this through medicine used to reduce high blood pressure that was prescribed by a doctor. Erkan Teper tested positive for steroids, and Povetkin who he has just fought has previously also failed 2 drugs tests. This goes to show how unfortunate it has been for Price, who admitted that he was extremely angry to hear of the positive tests and with little action being done to eradicate the problem. Instead, Price has had to suffer and even questioned himself a lot after the two Thompson losses. There is no doubt that Price drops his hands too much and does take too many shots both to the head and body, however his opponents’ use of performance-enhancing drugs certainly has contributed to his demise.
What next for Price’s career?
It is ultimately up to David Price on what he chooses to do next. In terms of world level boxing, his dreams of a world title shot appear to be over. However, that is no shame; winning the British and Commonwealth titles (as Price has done earlier in his career) is still a fantastic achievement for a boxer. In my opinion, if he continues to fight on, Price should look to go down the British level route and possibly European level after a few more wins to build himself back up. He is 34 years old now but as proven by Wladimir Klitschko’s recent retirement at the ripe old age of 41, boxers are able to fight on later. The fight that I would most like to see is a matchup with Dereck Chisora. Both fighters are at a crossroads stage in their careers and a win over one-another could help them to go on to another big fight. I would go as far to say that if Price couldn’t beat Chisora then he should definitely walk away from the sport for good. Even if Price decided to walk away now, it would be a smart decision as he has suffered several bad knockout defeats in his career and would be less damage to suffer moving forward. It is up Price as I have mentioned, but either the British route or retiring look the most likely options for him at this point.
Written by: Alex Loughran
The Geordie Boxing Journal 
Leave a comment