David Price: The Rebuilding Comes Home

By Olly Campbell - 05/15/2015 - Comments

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After those devastating back to back knockout losses to American veteran Tony Thompson 2 years ago, Liverpool’s heavyweight contender David Price (19-2, 16ko) went away to lick his wounds and re-assess his career and his options.

As far as the boxing went, his life was in tatters. Then promoter Frank – now Kellie – Maloney, was going through her own turmoil and walked away from the sport. In the British media Price was written off as finished and ridiculed over his punch resistance. He truly was out in the cold.

Yet the big-punching Scouser decided not to pack it all in and after inking a promotional deal with German heavyweights Sauerland, has cautiously been rebuilding in confidence-building fights in Europe – mostly in Germany.

Finally, on June 26 – it would seem that the man once tipped for world title glory is ready to return home. He has worked his way to a European title shot and is expected to fight Germany’s Erkan Teper (14-0, 9ko) in Liverpool in a fight that is to go to purse bids next week.

It will be an emotional return for Price against an opponent, who while reasonably dangerous, is of a level that Price would have been expected to blow away a couple of years ago. It would be absolutely career ending should he get knocked out again – and while the wily old American veteran (Thompson) was clearly overlooked and underestimated by Price – his focus must be 100% on Terper, who himself will surely fancy the job of testing Price’s chin for himself.

It’s true that any heavyweight in the opposite corner to Price will. The fear factor will have gone. Fighter’s know he is “delicate round the whiskers” so to speak.

British fans may remember Terper blowing out journeyman Michael Sprott and Belfast cabbie Martin Rogan inside a round in back to back fights a couple of years ago. While neither of those fighters is what you would call a stern test, Terper is about the right level for Price to be at should he be wishing to mix at European and domestic level again.

Of his homecoming he said;

“I’m buzzing to be back in Liverpool and fighting at the Echo Arena again.”

At today’s “All Or Nothing” presser to announce the fight card, Price promised the venue will hold no hoodoo for him, saying;

“I’ve gone there for concerts etc since. It holds no bad memories for me, I made my professional debut there. I’m looking forward to giving the city the belief in me again. I want to give them the belief that they can have a heavyweight champion again.”

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It looks to me that Price isn’t aiming too high with this return, taking each step methodically, yet he clearly wants to be back in the mix, particularly at domestic level.

He said;

“It looks like we are about to enter a golden time with heavyweight boxing in the UK. There are plenty of big fights to be made and they will involve me.”

With one time foe Tyson Fury now knocking on the door of world titles and out of the picture, I wouldn’t be surprised given how close Eddie Hearn is with Price’s promoters Sauerland – to see Anthony Joshua v David Price in the none too distant future – of course pending no more disasters for the Liverpudlian.

Failing that, some decent domestic fights against the likes of Dillian Whyte, Hughie Fury or Gary Cornish would certainly give us an idea of where Price is really at these days. A fight with the returning Robert Helenius seems pretty logical to me too, if he does indeed capture the EBU belt against Terper.

Either way, the big man is back on home turf and on June 26th we will see how far he has come and how far we can still expect him to go.

Twitter @Undilutedpoison