By Scott Gilfoid: In what a appears to be a last-ditch effort to try and save his floundering boxing career, British heavyweight David Price (15-2, 13 KO’s) has decided to change trainers from Franny Smith to Adam Booth. For those who aren’t familiar with Booth, he’s David Haye’s trainer. The 6’8″ Price is in pretty bad shape now with him having lost his last two fights in 2013 to American heavyweight Tony Thompson by knockouts.
The first loss was excused away by the theory that Price had been hit on the side of the head by a shot that he didn’t see coming from Thompson. But Price’s second knockout loss to Thompson removed all doubts about who the superior fighter was.
Price folded after 5 rounds, and he looked absolutely terrible the entire fight. The stamina wasn’t there for him, and he was seemed stressed out in fighting an opponent that was actually throwing punches back at him rather than keeling over after a few punches landed.
Price said to Sky Sports about Adam Booth “We did a few sessions together just to see how it would work, and he then agreed to train me. I was made up about that because I know Adam is very selective when it comes to choosing fighters to work with…[I] truly believe Adam is the man to bring out my true potential.”
I don’t see how Booth will be able to do much more than what Price’s previous trainer did. At best, I can see Adam adding some of his trademark feints that he likes his fighters use. Booth’s fighters tend to use feints a lot, and they circle the ring a lot of the time as well. His fighters tend to jump in to land 1 or 2 punches and then back away immediately. It’s kind of like how Tim Bradley fought last Saturday against Juan Manuel Marquez. That style of fighting isn’t pleasing to the eye, but it works because it limits the amount of times his fighters get hit. I don’t see how it could work with Price because he’s pretty slow on his feet, and he’s not going to be able to circle around the ring or keep fighters from cutting off the ring to force him into a brawl. To use Booth’s fighting style, you have to possess quick feet like Haye, and I don’t see Price as having the tools to do that.
Booth would be better off teaching Price to clinch, hold and lean on his opponents a lot like Wladimir Klitschko does rather than having him wasting time with circling the ring or using feints. If Price moves too much, he’ll gas out big time and end up getting knocked out again and again.
I blame part of Price’s defeats to Thompson due the fact that Price had been fed awful opposition in his first 15 fights of his pro career before the Thompson fight. Then when Price was suddenly put in with a halfway decent world class heavyweight in Tony Thompson, he wasn’t ready at all. This was more of a match-making blunder than anything. Price should have been moved up against a bottom dweller in the top 15 and then slowly moved up against increasingly better world opposition before finally being put in with Thompson.
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