David Price to fight on 5/29 on Bellew-Makabu card

By Boxing News - 04/22/2016 - Comments

price456By Scott Gilfoid: The struggling British heavyweight David Price (19-3, 16 KOs) has been added to the May 29th Tony Bellew vs. Ilunga Makabu at Goodison Park Stadium, in Liverpool, UK. The 6’7” Price still doesn’t have an opponent as of yet, but there’s a chance that he could wind up facing unbeaten David Allen (9-0-1, 6 KOs).

Price hasn’t fought since being stopped in the 2nd round by the hard hitting German fighter Erkan Teper last July. Teper later tested positive for a banned substance. Price doesn’t see his loss to him as being legit due to the positive test. Never the less, the way that Price keeps getting knocked out has to make you wonder whether he’s got the chin to succeed in this sport.

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, Price was being hyped just as much as Anthony Joshua is now. Price was doing just as good as the 6’6” Joshua has been doing. Things fell apart for Price when he was put in with veteran Tony Thompson in back to back fights, both of which Price lost by knockout.

In hindsight, it probably wasn’t a good idea to put Thompson in with someone as good as Thompson, given the fodder Price had been fed routinely leading up to the fight. Having Price fight Thompson a second time was a terrible blunder.

Price obviously believed he could correct the mistakes he made in the first fight, but he needed a promoter to steer him towards safer waters for a while to bring his confidence back up before putting him back in the ring with Thompson a second time.

“I’ll always stand by the fact that I’ve only lost to two men who both failed drug tests. I’ve been cheated,” said Price to skysports.com about his past opponents Thompson and Teper. “It’d be strange to fight at Goodison Park. I’ve never boxed at an outdoor event anyway but it’s a bit of a mad one for me.”

I doubt that Price’s promoters at Sauerland are going to put him in with someone with punching power. That would be a really bad idea right now, even though it would obviously be nice for Price to show off a little in front of a large crowd at Goodison Park. It would be irresponsible to have Price fight someone that was even remotely powerful.

Price needs to hit the reset button on his career, and learn to fight like Wladimir Klitschko so that he can protect his chin. Wladimir obviously doesn’t have the greatest chin as well, and we all remember how his career was on the brink of implosion after his knockout losses to Corrie Sanders in 2003 and Lamon Brewster in 2004. Those stoppage losses came close together, and many boxing fans assumed that Wladimir was finished. However, his trainer Emmanuel Steward was able to resurrect his career by teaching him to use his height and reach to fight on the outside and hold in close when his opponents try and get near enough to hit him.

Price’s problem is he doesn’t seem capable of fighting on the outside. He doesn’t throw long shots. Heck, Price can’t even throw a long jab. If you watch him fight, Price always gets around medium distance from his opponents when he throws jabs and power shots. His opponents are always within distance of landing their own shots. I guess this is some kind of flexibility issue or perhaps an indication that Price doesn’t have a long enough reach to fight on the outside.

Price is now trained by Dave Coldwell. I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to turn Price’s career around. If it were me, I’d get with trainer Johnathon Banks, and learn the Emmanuel Steward method. Banks is the Stanislovksi of the Steward method and he would likely do a great job of teaching Price how to fight like Wladimir.