By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten David Price (15-0, 13 KO’s) will continue with his steady course of facing aging fighters when he takes on 41-year-old Tony Thompson (36-3, 24 KO’s) at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England.
This is what you call a fight where a young lion with a questionable chin faces an old toothless lion with little time left at the top of the sport. Thompson, #11 IBF, is still ranked in the top 15, but he’s not going to remain there for long unless he goes back to fighting the 2nd tier opposition he’d been facing from 2008 to 2011.
Thompson was destroyed by IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO last July in a 6th round stoppage, and he’s not fought since. It’s not so much that Thompson was stopped in that fight, but how incredibly awful he looked. Thompson looked elderly and feeble, and it was painful to watch. And now Thompson has been picked out by Price’s promoter Frank Maloney to face #8 IBF, #9 WBC, #14 WBO Price.
It’s clear what this fight is all about. It’s another safe fight for the shaky-chinned Price to add another old scalp to his resume to go along with the 41-year-old Audley Harrison and 45-year-old Matt Skelton, the last two opponents Price has fought.
You don’t like to see guys like Price wasting time fighting older guys at his age of 29. It’s not like Price didn’t have an amateur career. The guy won a bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics, and he had a long amateur career. He’s not like the talented Deontay Wilder, who had less than 20 amateur fights when he fought his way onto the U.S Olympic squad in 2008.
Wilder did it on raw power, and went onto win a bronze medal. But with Price, he’s around the same age as Audley Harrison was when he started his pro career, and he needs to put in overdrive if he doesn’t want to waste his best years fighting 40-year-olds.
Price will win easy tonight, that’s a given. Thompson weighed in at 262 lbs in yesterday’s weigh-in, and looked to be carrying around a lot of excess lard on his body. When you have a fighter that chooses not to come in shape for the fight you think immediately that they may have doubts about their chances of success, and are using the conditioning as a possible excuse later.
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