By Scott Gilfoid: Last February, heavyweight David Price (15-1, 13 KO’s) was blasted out in two rounds by 41-year-old Tony Thompson (37-3, 25 KO’s) in Liverpool, England. The 6’8” Price wasn’t supposed to lose the fight, yet he did and it was a disappointing loss for the heavily hyped Price because his followers had pegged him as a future world champion.
Future world champions like Price aren’t supposed to be knocked out by aging heavyweights like Tony Thompson.
Price is now saying that the loss has made him a better fighter somehow. I’m not sure how, but that’s what Price is saying. At any rate, Price and Thompson will be fighting each other next month on July 6th at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK.
We’ll get a chance to see if Price is now a better fighter for having been knocked out. I don’t know how a fighter gets better by getting knocked out. I think it’s quite often the reverse with them getting worse because sometimes it’s easier to knock an opponent out after they’ve been knocked out in their previous bout.
Price said to Sky Sports “These things happen and it has probably made me a better fighter…Tony Thompson weighed in at his career heaviest, which led me to believe he hadn’t trained for the fight. The complacency crept in. It was just an accumulation of things.”
It seems like Price has a number of excuses for the loss. I guess whichever doesn’t stick one fan, some other excuses might do the job. As far as I can tell, Price didn’t do anything wrong in the fight. He didn’t leave himself open and he wasn’t that much.
His problem was that once he did get hit, he collapsed on the canvas and showed a poor chin. It was like watching Price get knocked out by Robert Cammarelle in the Olympics.
Price looked good in that fight until Cammarelle nailed him with a hard left hand, which left Price hanging on the ropes like a giant spider. Price also looked good against Bermane Stiverne in the amateurs until Stiverne nailed him with a big right hand shot that had Price staggering about.
Price didn’t do anything wrong in any of those fights. His problem was that once he tasted some of their power, he had problems.
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