By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten heavyweight contender David Price (15-0, 13 KO’s) is now an actual contender and moving forward to an eventual title shot at some point in his career. Price, #8 IBF, #14 WBO, who be fighting 41-year-old Tony Thompson (36-3, 24 KO’s) in two weeks on February 23rd in a fight that will mark the third fight in a row whether the 29-year-old former 2008 Olympian Price faces a fighter in his 40s.
I’m not quite sure if Price’s promoter Frank Maloney has deliberately targeted 40-year-olds for Price or if it just happened this way on accident, but whatever the reason, it’s pretty disappointing given Price’s age.
At 29, you’d kind of want Price to have stepped it up already instead of him being matched against past their best fighters in 45-year-old Matt Skelton, 41-year-old Audley Harrison and 41-year-old Thompson, but there’s some reason why Maloney has been targeting the older fighters for Price.
He’s yet to fight a puncher since turning pro, and some boxing fans feel that it’s this way because Price was badly hurt in the amateur ranks when he stepped it up and fought sluggers Roberto Cammarelle and Bermane Stiverne, both of which beat Price.
Thompson is just another weak puncher for Price, and no threat at all to beating him because he’s someone that wins by decision and not knockout. Thompson, #11 IBF, is still technically a contender given his ranking, but I’m not sure how much longer he’ll remain one if he keeps fighting the top contenders because he was knocked out easily in the 6th his last fight by IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko last July.
Before that fight, Thompson hadn’t fought 1st tier fighter since losing to Wladimir by an 11th round knockout in 2008, yet he was still ranked in the top 10 despite the long dry spell in between fighting contenders. I guess after Thompson loses to Price, we could see him going back to fighting the types of opponents he did between 2008 and 2012, and then getting another ranking.
Price want’s to knock Thompson out quicker than Wladimir did to try and show boxing fans something. I don’t know what it’ll show them because Wladimir didn’t go out there looking to take Thompson out in the 1st round when he fought him last July. If that was Wladimir’s goal, I have no doubts he could have done it, so it proves zero if Price stops Thompson early on February 23rd.
The Price-Thompson fight will be staged at the Echo Arena in Price’s home city of Liverpool, England.
Price wants to target the EBU heavyweight title in 2013. He may or may not get a chance against the current EBU champion Kubrat Pulev because he’s looking to fight an IBF eliminator bout against Tomasz Adamek so that he can get a title shot against Wladimir. It’s still unclear now if Adamek will agree to fight Pulev. If not, then Pulev could automatically be made the IBF mandatory challenger. If that happens, he’s certainly not going to fight Price while he waits for his title shot against Wladimir. But if Pulev does fight and lost an IBF eliminator bout, then he’ll definitely agree to fight Price. Somehow I don’t see Maloney making that fight with Pulev because it would be a huge departure from the types of fighters that Price has been fighting.
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