By Marcus Richardson: David Price (22-5, 18 KOs) will be continuing his career despite suffering his 5th career knockout loss las month in losing to former WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin by a 5th round knockout on March 31 in Cardiff, Wales.
Price, 34, wasn’t discouraged by the loss to the Russian Povetkin. Indeed, Price came out of the fight with even more motivation than he had going into the bout. Price was brutally knocked out in the 5th round from a right followed by a hard left by Povetkin. The former British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion Price came out of the fight with a fractured nose and 42 stitches from cuts inside his mouth and over his left eye.
What has Price so excited is the fact that he knocked Povetkin off balance in the 3rd round with a left hook that caught him when he was in close throwing a shot. Povetkin wasn’t expecting the shot, so he was momentarily knocked backwards across the ring. Contrary to what some boxing fans have been saying about Povetkin being hurt, he didn’t look stunned in the slightest. He just looked like he was caugh with a shot that he didn’t see coming.
“I’m excited to get back in there. I can’t wait. Normally I have some time away from boxing after a fight but I want to get straight back into it this time. I’ve fallen back in love with it,” Price said. “Although I lost and got knocked out, I proved I can compete with elite fighters. Before the fight, I said I would carry on regardless and after it, I take the positives and will now go for the European title.”
Price didn’t take as much criticism from the boxing public for his loss to Povetkin because he was facing one of the best heavyweights in the division, but things may be different if he loses to a lesser heavyweight. The EBU heavyweight champion is 25-year-old Agit Kabayel (17-0, 12 KOs), who is coming off a 12 round majority decision win over Dereck Chisora on November 4 last year in Monte Carlo.
The 6’3” isn’t a big puncher, but he does have good stamina, excellent hand speed and better than average mobility. Kabayel’s punching power isn’t the type that should worry the 6’8” Price too much, but his stamina might be a huge problem for him. Christian Hammer isn’t a big puncher wither, and yet he was still able to knockout Price in the 7th round simply by sticking around long enough until he faded and was vulnerable to get knocked out.
Povetkin, 38, can still punch with a lot of power for a small heavyweight at 6’2”, 225 lbs., but he’s lost a lot from his game and he doesn’t look like the fighter he was five years ago. Price caught Povetkin with a good shot that knocked him off balance, but that was the only time in the fight in which he briefly looked good. Price is going to have to struggle and likely lost to even limited guys like Kabayel if he persists with his career. Price’s knockout losses to fighters like Erkan Teper and Christian Hammer shows that he’s not able to beat even the fringe level fighters. Teper isn’t even a contender. He’s just a 2nd tier fighter.
“That hook landed so cleanly. If the referee hadn’t have given him a count I could have followed up my attack before the end of the round. They were small margins,” Price said. “The knockout won’t have been nice for people to watch in the heat of the moment but I didn’t mind watching it straight afterwards when I went backstage,” Price said.
If Price wants to try somehow to get a title shot against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, then going through Kabayel is definitely the path to go in. But even if Price wins that fight, he’s going to need to keep winning against fringe level heavyweights similar to Kabayel if he wants to get pushed up the rankings high enough to where Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn will agree to make the fight.