David Price v Irineu Costa this Saturday, February 21st in Berlin, Germany

By Boxing News - 02/17/2015 - Comments

price5By Scott Gilfoid: This Saturday night on February 21st, #12 WBO heavyweight contender David Price (18-2, 15 KO) will be looking to pick up his fourth consecutive win when he faces a fighter named Irineu Beato Costa Junior (16-2, 14 KOs) in a 10 round bout at the O2 World Arena, Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany.

The Price-Costa Junior fight will be on the undercard of the Arthur Abraham vs. Paul Smith II card, and hopefully the fight will make for an entertaining affair. It’s obviously a mismatch on paper, as the 34-year-old Costa Junior fighter is being brought in to give the 31-year-old Price some rounds.

Costa Junior was recently hammered out in just 4 rounds in 2014 by Joseph Parker, so that kind of tells you a little about him and why he’s being brought in to face Price.

For Price, he says he’ll be getting a world title shot in the near future. I don’t know if that’s going to be possible unless IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitachko decides to dig from the bottom of the rankings for another title defense.

With Wladimir, you really can’t be too sure, because he’s had some very soft opponents recently in Alex Leapai, Francesco Pianeta, Jean Marc Mormeck, and Mariusz Wach. There’s talk of Wladimir possibly facing 43-year-old Shannon Briggs in September. Price certainly fits in with that bunch.

Price has been dealing with injuries for the past 9 months. Whether this is a sign of Price starting to age or simply just a freak thing is unclear. All we do know is if Price continues to suffer injuries at this clip and miss additional time, then you have to see it as an age thing.

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Price says he wants to fight Anthony Joshua, the winner of the 2012 London Olympics at super heavyweight, but that’s probably not a fight that will happen. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is interested in putting Joshua in with Dereck Chisora and Tyson Fury, but those guys are flawed in one way or another.

Fury can’t punch, so it makes sense for Hearn to put Joshua in with him. Fury also has shown to have a chin problem, and that makes him an ideal opponent for Joshua. Chisora is just too short, and he’s already failed four times when he’s fought taller heavyweights during his career in losses to Fury, Robert Helenius and Vitali Klitschko.

Price’s promoters at Sauerland are trying to rebuild him after his two defeats against Tony Thompson. They’re basically starting Price from scratch by going backwards to the very infancy of his pro career by putting him in with 3rd tier opposition in hopes of building up his confidence and developing some skills. But the problem is that Price doesn’t look any better now than he did when he started his pro career back in 2009.

Price still jabs from too far in and is hittable against his shorter opponents. He also is too rigid with his upper body, and that obviously isn’t going to help him when he faces a live body at some point in the future.

Price’s stamina, or lack thereof, doesn’t look like it’s improved since he was blasted out by Thompson in 2013. Price looked tired in his last fight against little known Yaroslav Zavorotnyi last year in June.



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