Thompson vs. Price II: Tony ready to score another KO

By Boxing News - 05/11/2013 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: Last February 41-year-old heavyweight contender Tony Thompson (37-3, 25 KO’s) blasted out Britain’s David Price (15-1, 13 KO’s) in two easy rounds in Liverpool, UK.

Instead of Price and his promoter Frank Maloney getting a clue that it might not be the best idea to tangle with the 6’5” Thompson again, they’ve set up a rematch for July 6th, and once again in Price’s home city of Liverpool, UK. This is a really huge gamble that the 6’8” Price is taking because if he loses to Thompson for a second time by knockout then it’ll be time for Price to hand up the gloves and look for another line of work.

We’ve seen plenty of ex-Olympians fail at the pro level and Price would just be another example of that.

Thompson said to the liverpoolecho.co.uk “I’m pretty desperate and desperate people do desperate things and I’m going to go out there and show that. My whole career has been a make or break fight. I hear David talk about being in a make or break fight and who needs it more…I need the fight more.”

I honestly think it’s a toss-up, although Price does have a big advantage over Thompson in terms of his built in fan base in Liverpool. Price can lose to Thompson in July, and I’m almost certain that his Liverpool fans will keep faithfully packing the Echo Arena in Liverpool fight after fight to watch him fight the guys that his promoter digs up for him.

Price will continue to sell out the Echo Arena even if he gets smashed by Thompson again, and Price can make a nice little living beating up domestic level fighters and an occasional fringe contender maybe. With Thompson, he doesn’t have the same soft landing that Price has should he lose.

Thompson doesn’t have a huge fan base in the United States, and he doesn’t have a home arena that he fights in and has tons of fans to see him fight. It’s not that Thompson isn’t a good fighter.

It’s just that things are different in the U.S compared to the UK. If Price was an American fighter, he’d be in the same situation with fighting in front of small crowds in American and needing to travel to other parts of the world to scrape up some good paying fights.

I think Price is going to get knocked out again by Thompson and I hope Price learns something from this loss that he should have learned last time. He should have learned that Thompson is his superior and you don’t want to tempt fate a second time when you’ve been owned the way that Price was by Thompson.



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