DAVID PRICE returns to action on Friday (July 27) at the Bolton Whites Hotel. His last bout was on the undercard of Anthony Joshua vs Joseph Parker in Cardiff earlier this year, when he lost inside five rounds to Russian heavyweight Alexander Povetkin, who becomes Joshua’s September 22 challenger at Wembley Stadium.
Price can only wonder if that might have been him. “I was seconds away from being the mandatory challenger. That’s how funny a game it is,” he tells Boxing News. “I think it was probably my best performance for a while until the knockout. So I just want to carry on where I left off before I got knocked out, make better decisions during the fight. Because I know I only got caught the way I did because I was trying to beat Povetkin to the punch. As he threw his right hand I tried to clip him on top of the head with the left hook… I hurt him, then I had him wobbled in the fifth round. As he’s whipped the right hand over I’ve tried to beat him to it with my left hook. He beat me to the punch but any other time when he was letting his hands go, he weren’t getting through. If I’d been a bit more disciplined and waited until he’d stopped throwing, then thrown my own attacks I reckon I could have at least gone longer anyway or even beat him. But I was in the fight.
“No one has done that, [hurt him] apart from Klitschko. So positives to take from it. I’m proud of it. I’m going to build on the momentum even though I lost.”
Price gave his expert analysis of the Joshua-Povetkin heavyweight title fight. “I think Joshua’s defence is better than mine, as far as hand positioning goes, he’s got a good defence, Joshua, so I can’t see [Povetkin] getting through his defence. But at the same time Povetkin has got a good judgement of distance. He makes you miss by a couple of inches, well-schooled, he is difficult to land a right hand on. He’s got better feet,” Price said. “Povetkin will have to get past Joshua’s jab, uppercuts, whatever else. He’ll try and unload then, left hook to the body, left hook to the head, with the right hand round the side. But I can see Joshua catching them and after six rounds I think Joshua will stop him.”
“It’s going to be a good fight. As far as I’m concerned on that Cardiff show Povetkin was the second best heavyweight on that show, not Joseph Parker. He’s better than Parker. He’d knock Parker out,” David continued. “With the drug things [Povetkin has twice failed drug tests] and whatever else, who knows, but when you’ve got Carlos Takam and Johann Duhaupas getting knocked out cold by him, with only Deontay Wilder stopping Duhaupas on his feet, Joshua stopping Takam on his feet, Povetkin is dangerous… It’s a real fight.”
Now Price needs to rebuild once again. He is determined to get a couple of wins under his belt and then see what opportunities that can create. “I want to try to get on this Joshua-Povetkin card at Wembley,” David said. “I want to be involved in good fights.”
“I just need to try to get a bit of momentum,” he concluded. “Find my form and the next few years try and do as much as I can in the sport and see where we go.”
