• Steve Bunce

The Price looks right after powerful display

Steve Bunce January 24, 2012
David Price is ready to take his game to the next level © Getty Images
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Liverpool's own David Price made a big statement about his potential with a first-round knockout of John McDermott on Saturday.

Price has done a great job of slowly learning and developing, changing his body and turning himself into a fantastic looking heavyweight prospect - and he's done all that under the radar. We know he won a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics, and for six years he was going around the globe fine-tuning his skills on the amateur circuit, but it has been a steady transition in the professional ranks. Nothing flashy, he's just been getting on with business.

He took John McDermott apart - and don't be fooled, that was a great win. McDermott helped Pricey by going out and throwing punches like a nutcase, but at the same time I don't think he had any chance of beating his opponent over 10 rounds, so perhaps his best chance was to try and catch him cold. It didn't work - instead Pricey caught him not once, not twice, but three times - and sure enough he got a really impressive win. Big John kept getting up.

McDermott is measurable; he's a yardstick for Price. He's been in hard fights with British champion Tyson Fury, one of which he was perhaps unlucky not to get the decision. If David had laboured to a 10-round points win then it wouldn't have been as good, but he didn't. He took him out in 73 seconds and now he is ready to take on Fury - who he beat when they were amateurs. Fury insists it was a bad decision, Pricey just shrugs and laughs.

He was experienced then, Fury wasn't - but it is tricky now for the British & Commonwealth champion, as he is in no man's land to an extent. Fury isn't ready for either of the Klitschkos or the other heavyweight world champion, Alexander Povetkin, but at the same time some might say fighting mandatory contender Price is a 'backward step'.

I don't think it is - I think it is a fight that could be promoted to massive heights. Tyson Fury is probably our second most recognisable fighter after Amir Khan - at least while David Haye remains retired - so it would be a massive, massive fight. And Fury won't avoid Price, either.

David Price was clever after his win, saying "I know Tyson Fury is a fighting man". That's a reference to Fury's gypsy background, and the fact he's always said he is proud to take on anyone that comes at him. The ball is really in Fury's corner, but it needs to make cash common sense for the fight to actually happen.

There are obstacles. For a start, they fight on rival channels - which is a big issue as they are good business for both of them so neither will want them to leave. If it goes to purse bids, and one promoter wins the right to stage the fight, then the other will lose out - which won't go down well.

Price's other option is to go to America, as they are producing nothing but recycled 30, 40-year-olds. A big, white, English-speaking heavyweight like Price would be extremely marketable. Imagine him at Madison Square Garden! Hype up the Beatles link on account of him being from Liverpool - trust me, and I'm not even joking, promoter Frank Maloney will spin it to say he's related to John Lennon - and you've got a winning recipe. The Sergio Martinez-Matthew Macklin card on March 17 has a very British and Irish feel to it, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him involved in that..

That is if he doesn't fight Fury next, but I see no reason why that fight can't happen now. There's nothing wrong with a good fighter losing. Look at Dereck Chisora - he was beaten by Fury last year and now he's facing Vitali Klitschko. Losing a fight doesn't have to be the end. It's only in the last 20 years that fighters have started to be protected to such a crazy level; defeats are not a problem if you put on a good show.

I can see David Price and Tyson Fury fighting, possibly as early as May - it would be a massive, massive fight.

Carl Froch needs to decide what his next goal is © Getty Images
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Cobra needs to find his next victim
The big mystery is what is going on inside Carl Froch's head. Here's a guy that has been involved in a unique and brilliant series of fights, most of which have taken place overseas, and he's come back to find himself not exactly an outlaw - even though he is from Robin Hood's parish - but still struggling for the recognition his ring deserve.He's been rejected by Showtime in the US, and now he's got to come out and try and find a fight.

Carl Froch against Nathan Cleverly, in front of 30,000 or 40,000 at an outdoor venue - that's a fight I would absolutely jump at, but for whatever reason he doesn't seem to want it. If Cleverly isn't an option, and the Lucian Bute deal dies completely, then there aren't many others out there. Mikael Kessler will fight for a title in the spring, so that means he can't fight Froch until September at the earliest.

There had been a suggestion Froch would move down to middleweight, but I find that extremely hard to believe. Froch needs to decide what he wants to do - he's got the respect of the hardcore boxing fan, but he still has work to do with the wider public.

An outdoor fight in front of 40,000 would be great for him. A fight for him had been planned for the start of August, but it turned out to be on the same day Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah were competing in the Olympics, which would not have been good for business! Crazy plan. The organisation needs to be sharper. They need to get a fight done and dusted as soon as possible really, so his coach Rob McCracken can concentrate on his preparations with Team GB's Olympic boxing team. A fight in May seems necessary and any later could be a problem with McCracken's GB commitments.

PTI UK: Audley's return
Audley dancing his way down the comeback trail
Audley Harrison has announced his comeback fight against Ali Adams, a guy who basically walked here from Iraq and now fights out of Hammersmith. Listen, this fight, it's Audley Harrison - he will sell tickets, more than almost all other fighters in Britain. That's the way it works.

They don't give gold medals away - like the one he won in 2000 - and a fight down the line with David Price or Tyson Fury, those would be great fights. That's his target here.

Audley, hand on heart, would look you in the eye and tell you he can win the British title and go on to claim a world title. It's not delusional, he really believes it. If he gets past Adams - and that's not a foregone conclusion, he's a good fighter - then there are big fights out there.

Thousands of people bought into Harrison's fight with David Haye a few years ago, and even though it was a disappointment they'd buy into his confrontation against the new generation as well. It's called promotion, it's called boxing. And, after his appearance on Strictly Come Dancing, maybe his footwork will be better than ever.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Steve Bunce Close
Steve Bunce has been ringside in Las Vegas over 50 times, he has been at five Olympics and has been writing about boxing for over 25 years for a variety of national newspapers in Britain, including four which folded! It is possible that his face and voice have appeared on over 60 channels worldwide in a variety of languages - his first novel The Fixer was published in 2010 to no acclaim; amazingly it has been shortlisted for Sports Book of the Year.