David Price is in action this Saturday night, against the unbeaten but somewhat untested at top level Kash Ali, and Price knows he simply has to win the fight or else his career will almost certainly be over. Price has been urged to retire before now, by fans and by boxing experts, yet he’s still here, knowing that, as close as he could be to enforced retirement he is also only one win away from something big.
35 year old Price spoke with Sky Sports and the former Olympian says he is taking it “one fight at a time,” and that he has to “keep winning and hope that something comes my way.” Price, 23-6(19) has never challenged for a world title – something that looked entirely likely back when he was an unbeaten wrecking machine going through the likes of Sam Sexton, Audley Harrison and Matt Skelton – and he looks at a guy like Dominic Breazeale who is set for his second shot and thinks how that could have been him had he had, as he puts it, “brilliant management.”
“I look at Breazeale and when I when I watch him I don’t see anything that’s worth worrying about in the slightest,” Price said. “The difference between me and him is the way he’s been guided to such a position, as he’s on the verge of challenging for another heavyweight title. That’s what you call brilliant management. He’s someone who’s never really impressed me, but you look at his record and he’s only lost once and he’s about to go in with Wilder, after already fighting Joshua. He’s someone I’d be confident of beating if we ever fought, but I’m not in any sort of position to be asking for that fight at the moment.”
But as fans know, any big-name heavyweight, with one big win, can wind up getting a title shot. Even fighters who have no real name can get a shot at glory – look at Tom Schwarz, who will face lineal king Tyson Fury in June (in fact, when taking into account all the negativity this match-up has received and is still receiving, perhaps Price would have been more interesting as the next foe for Fury, providing he beats Ali of course – these two do have a history after all.)
The thing with Price is, he will always have a puncher’s chance when he fights. This is likely what has kept him in the game after suffering those six losses. Price cannot afford another loss, as well he knows, and maybe that “something big” will indeed come his way if he wins on Saturday.
