David Price vs. Jakov Gospic on 5/29 in Liverpool, UK

By Boxing News - 05/20/2016 - Comments

price7By Scott Gilfoid: Former British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion David Price (19-3, 16 KOs) will be trying to turn his career around this month against journeyman Jakov Gospic (17-14, 12 KOs) an eight round fight on May 29 on the undercard of the Tony Bellew vs. Ilunga Makabu cruiserweight fight at Goodison Park Stadium, in Liverpool, UK.

Price, 32, has been out of the ring for 11 months since his 2nd round knockout loss to Erkan Teper. Price feels that he doesn’t need to take his career backwards to fight for things like the British title. He sees himself as a top world class fighter in the mix with the other top fighters.

It remains to be seen if that’s the case. The fact that Price was taken out twice by Tony Thompson and once by Teper would seem to suggest that he’s a domestic level fighter rather than a world class guy.

If Price can start showing a strong chin and some stamina, then maybe he can get up to the world level with the other fighters.

“I’m not really bothered about going down the British route. If I get put back where I belong before I was cheated, I’m beyond the British route,” said Price to skysports.com. “I was always going to come back from this – there’s only so long they can keep a quality, big-punching heavyweight like myself down. There’s only so long. The quality will come through.”

Price is getting ahead of himself. He hasn’t proven anything during his career for him to be calling himself a quality fighter. At this point, I’m not sure that Price could even beat a domestic level guy like Dave Allen or Dereck Chisora.

Those guys would have a good chance of sparking Price out if they started strong and didn’t wait around to let him get his shots off first. It would be a race to see which of these guys lands first. Those guys seem capable of taking some good shots without crumbling. With Price, I’m not sure if he can handle getting hit hard even once without nose diving into the canvas for a knockout.

“I’ve always maintained that I’m as good – I’ve got as much ability, if not more – than most heavyweights. I’d put myself on an even peg,” said Price.

Man, I don’t know where Price is getting all this stuff about him being on the same level as most heavyweight, but I do not agree with that. I mean, I thought for a while there that Price might be someone that could compete at the world level, but his knockout losses to Thompson and Teper has me believing he doesn’t have the chin for the game. Yeah, I know Wladimir Klitschko got by with a fragile chin and did well, but he had a great jab and an ability to tie up his opposition. Price doesn’t have a long jab and he rarely clinches.

Price seems to jab only from short to medium distance despite having long arms. This makes him vulnerable to getting hit at all times by his shorter opponents. Price also can’t throw long power shots the way that Wladimir has during his career. Price also doesn’t have a very good left hook like Wladimir. As such, I just don’t see the talent there for Price to do the same things that Wladimir has done with his career with his less that strong chin. Price will probably destroy Gospic without any problems but this isn’t a great opponent.