David Price eager for Deontay Wilder fight

By Boxing News - 06/15/2015 - Comments

1-WILDERvsMOLINA-06132015-4859By Scott Gilfoid: #14 WBA fringe contender David Price (19-2, 16 KOs) is hoping he can get a title shot against WBC heavyweight title against champion Deontay Wilder (34-0, 33 KOs) after Price first takes on undefeated 2nd tier fighter Erkan Teper (14-0, 9 KOs) for the vacant European heavyweight title next month on July 17th in Germany.

Why the 31-year-old Price is fighting for a European strap at his age is anyone’s guess. That’s a strap that Price should have gone after in his first year as a pro, not in 6th year. It makes no sense at all other than making Price look like an underachiever in the minds of some boxing fans.

Price thinks he saw flaws in the 6’7” Wilder’s game that he can take advantage of if only he could get a title shot. With Price’s low #14 ranking with the WBA, I’m not expecting Wilder to throw him a bone anytime soon by giving him a title shot that he doesn’t deserve. I mean, Wilder just defended his WBC title against a voluntary challenger in #9 Eric Molina. I think it would look bad if Wilder started scraping from the bottom of the WBA rankings to hand-pick Price, who is still trying to pick up the broken pieces of his shattered career after his back to back knockout losses to 40-year-old Tony Thompson in 2013.

“I said before the fight that I’d love to challenge Deontay Wilder – and I say the same after the fight,” Price said to Skysports.com. “It’s what I know I’m capable of. I believe that in a fight between me and Wilder, I can come out on top.”
This is funny.

Price believes he can beat the talented Deontay Wilder, yet Price couldn’t even beat 40+ year-old Tony Thompson. I don’t know how to work that out. If Price still has unfinished business with Thompson, then why in the heck would he deserve a title shot against Wilder? I mean, I don’t know that fighters are supposed to get world title shots based on failure rather than success.

I’m all for giving a down in his luck fighter like Price a fresh start with his career, but you have to earn it. Things are done on the merit system in the sport of boxing. You don’t just get opportunities handed to you after you get whipped twice in a row by Thompson. You’ve got to buck up and start beating some quality opponents so you can get ranked high again before you’re given a world title.

Look at the guys that Price has fought since he was spanked by Thompson: Istvan Ruzsinszky, Ondrej Pala, Yaroslav Zavorotnyi and Irineu Beato Costa Junior.

Those are nice 3rd tier heavyweights, but they’re a million miles away from being 1st tier guys. Price needs to be taking on 1st tier heavyweights if he wants to get moved up quickly in the rankings. Fighting unknowns like Teper, Pala, Costa Junior and Ruzsinszky is a total waste of time. If I were Price, I would have vetoed all of those choices by his promoter, and instead picked out Mike Perez, Carlos Teper, Kubrat Pulev, and Lucas Browne in his last four fights.

Believe me, if Price had beaten those guys, do you really think he’d still be ranked at near dead bottom of the WBA’s rankings at No.14? I don’t. I could see Price being ranked in the top five by now. The thing is Price isn’t young at 31, and he doesn’t have a lot of time to be fighting awful opposition.

His promoters can put Price in with a 100 poor heavyweights, and I suspect he’ll beat them all. But he’s not going to improve any to where he can beat the likes of Deontay Wilder, Wladimir Klitschko and the other top heavyweights. They might as well get it over with by putting Price in with some quality heavyweights. If he fails, then they can wash their hands of him and move on. If he wins, then they can enjoy the cash that he makes from those fights.

“It’s something I’ve got to work towards, which I’m in the process of doing. But there was nothing from Wilder that made me think I’d avoid fighting him,” Price said. “He looked like he’s gone backwards but we’re all allowed a bad day at the office.”

I thought Wilder looked good in the fight against Molina. Heck, he knocked him down four times in the fight and had him flat on his back in the 9th, staring at the lights. It almost a shutout in terms of Wilder winning rounds. He did his job. It’s another knockout on Wilder’s resume, and it puts him one fight closer to eventually getting his big money fight against Wladimir Klitschko in the future.



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