WE know by now that big men and big names drive pay-per-view events and therefore it should come as no surprise that David Price has received the call to face Dereck Chisora on October 26 in London.
Six-foot-eight Price, who impressed against Dave Allen in July, will step in to replace Chisora’s original opponent, Joseph Parker, it was announced today.
He gets the chance because he always promises excitement, built around a me-or-him approach to the knockout, and because he has, like Chisora and Parker, become a staple of Sky Sports Box Office shows over the years. It’s a conveyor belt of well-known heavyweights these days and now it’s Price’s turn to again get involved.
“I’m very excited for this fight,” said the Liverpudlian, 25-6 (20). “Derek is a great competitor and I’m sure he’ll bring the best out of me. I kept in the gym all summer because I had a feeling I had to be ready for a call like this, and ready I am.”
Chisora, 31-9 (22), wanted to be the main event back when his fight with Parker was still in place, back when he had no time for Josh Taylor and Regis Prograis, the two super-lightweights who officially headline this O2 Arena show. But now he will presumably be grateful just to have a fight, an interesting one, and the chance to make some money.
“It didn’t matter who got in the ring with me on October 26th, I’m ready for war,” said Chisora. “Parker b*tched out. It’s like he thinks he is Peter Parker not Joseph Parker with his Spider-Man excuses. It’s cool. Let him do his thing.
“David Price has stepped up and I’m ready for whatever he brings. If he thinks I’m just going to stand there and be a punch bag like Dave Allen he is in for a shock. This is north versus south and in my hometown I write the rules. Saturday 26th October get ready to scream timber!”
There are 15 professional defeats between Dereck Chisora and David Price and some will say this number speaks to the fight’s irrelevance on a global stage. But where there are setbacks there is also a lot of personality, power and potential fireworks between this pair and these days, at least where PPV events are concerned, those are the all-important ingredients.
Ever since moving to heavyweight, Oleksandr Usyk has struggled catching a break.
The former cruiserweight ruler’s heavyweight debut has been delayed by injuries and postponements and now, with a fight scheduled for Saturday (October 12) in Chicago, his opponent, Tyrone Spong, has flunked a Voluntary Anti-Doping (VADA) test and seems likely to be in need of replacing.
Spong’s failure was revealed by the show’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, who this morning wrote: “We have been contacted by VADA to inform us that there has been an adverse finding in Tyrone Spong’s test.
“It has been sent to the State of Illinois commission. We have reserve opponents standing by.”
According to reports, the drug in question is clomiphene, an anti-estrogen drug commonly used by athletes as an accompanying medication to anabolic steroid use. Its general purpose is to combat the metabolisation of exogenous testosterone into estrogen.
Clomiphene is typically included in an athlete’s performance-enhancing drug use regimen to combat the negative side effects associated with PED use. It is also the anabolic steroid users look to as a means of jump-starting their body’s own natural testosterone production after it has shut down from exogenous synthetic testosterone use.
The latest in a long line of heavyweights to deliver a dirty drug test, Tyrone Spong has some explaining to do.
