David Price to fight Evgeny Orlov on December 14th in Germany

By Boxing News - 11/27/2013 - Comments

price#2By Scott Gilfoid: 30-year-old British heavyweight David Price (15-2, 13 KO’s) will be trying to resurrect his shattered career next month against 35-year-old Russian journeyman Evgeny Orlov (14-12-1, 10 KO’s) in a scheduled 8 round bout at the Jahnsportforum, Neubrandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Price has changed his whole team with him now trained by Adam Booth and promoted by Sauerland Events from Germany.

It’s unclear what if any changes can be made in fixing Price’s chin and stamina problems with these moves. Those flaws in Price’s game will likely carry over with him to whatever country and promotional company he chooses to fight with.

Price’s pro career started off well enough with him winning his first 15 fights with 13 of them coming by knockout, but when his previous promoter tried to step him up against 42-year-old Tony Thompson, Price was badly exposed with him getting knocked out twice. The first time he blamed it on Thompson hitting him behind the ear with a shot that he wasn’t prepared for. Fair enough, it did look like a shot that Price wasn’t ready for in a location that probably would have knocked out anyone. But his second stoppage loss to Thompson, a 5th round job last July, left no question that Price has both a chin and stamina problems.

Price’s new promoters are going to put him in with a series of easy tune-ups before they step him up against better opposition next year. However, I don’t know if anything will change if they put him back on a soft diet because he’s already established that he can beat the fodder opposition. It’s the decent heavyweights that he has problems with.

I can see his German handlers eventually matching Price tough in a year or two and then watching him get knocked out. Like Johnny Nelson said, Price’s German promoters will give him a chance but if he starts failing for them, they’ll pull the rug out on him quickly if it looks like it’s not going to work out. Price is going to need to show that he’s improving that he has the potential to win a world title or at least get to that point for him to turn things around with Sauerland.

Orlov has been beaten by a lot of well known heavyweights such as Alex Leapai, Vyacheslav Glazkov, Kubrat Pulev, Francesco Pianeta and Mariusz Wach.

At 6’9″, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if Orlov knocks Price out in this fight, because he’s got a little bit of power in his shots. Orlov also has a good chin, which means he might stick around past the 5th round and give Price problems just by being able to take him deep into the fight.

If you look at Price’s first 15 fights, many of them were 4 rounds or less to where he didn’t have his stamina and chin tested. In fact, 13 of Price’s first 15 fights were 4 rounds or less. In his two fights against Tony Thompson, Price lasted 2 and 5 rounds. What this tells me is that Price hasn’t had his stamina developed or really tested by his opponents. Orlov could be the guy that takes Price deep and knocks him out if he fades like he did with the fast pace that Thompson put on him in their last fight.



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