David Price (22-5, 18 KOs) gave it his best shot tonight, but he wound up getting knocked out badly in the 5th round by former WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (34-1, 24 KOs) in an entertaining fight on Saturday night on the undercard of the Anthony Joshua vs. Joseph Parker fight at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.
Povetkin had Price out on his feet after nailing him with a right to the head in the 5th. Povetkin then finished Price off with a left hook that knocked him down. The fight was then stopped by the referee. The time of the stoppage was 1:02.
Povetkin had his way with Price for the most part, controlling rounds 1, 2, 4 and 5. Povetkin knocked Price down in round 3 with a right hand. Price got back up and hurt Povetkin with a left hook to the head at the end of the round. If there was more time left in the round, Price might have knocked Povetkin out, because he was hurt. After that, Price let Povetkin off the hook and did nothing in rounds 4 and 5.
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WBA bantamweight champion Ryan Burnett (19-0, 9 KOs) defeated Yonfrez Parejo (21-3-1, 10 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision. The scores were 120-108, 120-108, and 116-112. It was a predictable result. Burnett’s promoter Eddie Hearn was wise to have him swerve the Emmanuel Rodriguez and Zolani Tete fights. Burnett would have likely lost to both tonight. He’s good fighter, but not in the league of Tete and Rodriguez, and definitely not Naoya Inoue. Luis Nery would be a problem for Burnett as well if he could make the weight.
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WBA 135 lb. champion Anthony Crolla (33-6-3, 13 KOs) defeated Edson Ramirez (18-3-1, 8 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision. This fight could have gone either way. A draw would have been fine. The problem is the judges gave Crolla was wide 10 round decision by the scores 100-91, 100-90 and 98-92. That was just wrong. This could have been a draw or a close win, but not a win for Crolla by those wide scores. Crolla seems to be one of those fighters that gets a lot of controversial decisions for some reason.
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Welterweight Josh Kelly (6-0, 4 KOs) beat former junior middleweight champion Carlos Molina (28-9-2, 8 KOs) by ten round unanimous decision. The judges scored it 98-92, 98-92 and and 99-91. This was not a big step up for Kelly, because Molina is past it and not the guy he was 7 years ago.
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Light heavyweight Joshua Buatsi (6-0, 4 KOs) beat Bartolmiej Grafka (20-29-3, 9 KOs) by a six round decision.