In a new series, published during weekdays on Boxing Social, the incomparable Terry Dooley delivers his unique look at the boxing news.
With the focus on Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder’s trilogy clash for the WBC belt this week, the news that Fury’s former domestic rival David Price has decided to retire flew under the radar. Price won the British and Commonwealth titles, but stoppage losses to Tony Thompson, twice, Erkan Teper, Christian Hammer, Alexander Povetkin, Sergey Kuzmin and Dereck Chisora ensured that he never quite hit the level many expected him to after showing so much promise early on his career.
The huge, affable Liverpudlian always seemed too nice a person for boxing in general and the heavyweight division in particular and never recovered from the Thompson defeats. “I’m not going to be fighting again,” he told BT Sport.
“You won’t see me in a boxing ring again, for a fight at least. That was only officially made up in my mind about six weeks ago. A few factors came into it. I obviously haven’t fought for two years, so totally inactive. At age 38, the hunger was no longer there. That’s massive. The glory had gone in my career.”
Price retires with a record of 25 wins, seven losses, with 20 of his wins coming by stoppage, he leaves with the well-wishes of everyone who had the pleasure of meeting and talking to him during his career. Hopefully, he returns to boxing in a different capacity.
Price was trained by Lennox Lewis for the rematch with Thompson, and the former world heavyweight champion believes that Fury is well on his way to all-time great status as long he beats Wilder again then cleans up against the winner of the rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua.
“All great fighters need great opponents,” said Lewis (quotes C/O The Sun). “Right now, Tyson Fury has boxed against arguably the second-greatest heavyweight out there — he’s going to be having three fights with him. He’s not boxing anyone else but he’s boxing a top guy, so out of that he’s learnt a lot.”
“Is he done now?” asked Lewis “No, there are other guys out there who he needs to go after as well. So I don’t think he will stop here, he will still go on…Fury is a great boxer, he boxes orthodox and southpaw, he loves the sport.
“In Deontay’s mind he has knocked out lots of people and, as he always says, he only needs that one second. But that second has to come around, you have to wait for the right time. And sometimes that second never comes. That is why you have to give it to the boxer, the guy who is putting in all the work all the way through the fight. Waiting for one second and taking advantage is great — but maybe it doesn’t come.”
Fury has been open about the fact that he expects to struggle post-boxing, former Lewis opponent Frank Bruno faced many issues after he retired and fought long and hard against depression. The former WBC heavyweight titlist has told The Express that retirement can be the hardest opponent a boxer has to face.
He said: “When you finish boxing, that’s when the fight starts. I think Tyson won’t just beat Wilder again, he’ll school him. He’s a much better boxer.”
As for his own career, Bruno admitted that it took on toll on him, his family and his friends. “It affected my family life in a big way because I wasn’t the same,” he said. “When I finished, my trainer George Francis told me, ‘This is when the fight starts’.
“When you’ve finished and you’re not coming down the gym and you’re not keeping up your routine, something flips. You get very vexed or very upset very quickly and you can be a not very nice person to be around…But I don’t blame boxing — boxing saved my life. It’s a good sport. If I’d listened to my friends years ago I’d have been robbing a bank. Looking back, I probably first realised I had a problem when I was at boarding school. It didn’t affect my career because I was too busy training.
“That’s why it’s good to chat and get it off your plate,” he added. “Some people didn’t understand about the way I felt — schizophrenic, manic, depressed. Please don’t feel bad, talk to someone.”
The war of words between Jake Paul and Tommy Fury has been waged across social media and it appears that their fight has been made on social media. Paul laid out the fight conditions via Instagram by stating that: ‘If you beat me, I will give you an extra $500,000. However, if you lose you have to change your last name for one year to Tommy Fumbles.”
“We have a deal,” responded Fury. “Get that sent over to my lawyers ASAP right now. We’ll get that looked at and sorted because there’s not a chance in hell you are winning this fight. You’re leaving on a stretcher. You’re getting knocked spark out and you know it. Get it over to me now.”
In other Paul news, a source close to Floyd Mayweather has told The Sun that a fight between them could also be on the cards as Mayweather is allegedly angry with Paul for making a mockery of the sport. Paul also sent Mayweather’s girlfriend a message via social media, further angering the former pound-for-pound king.
“Floyd has been telling pals he’s had enough of Jake Paul,” claimed The Sun’s source. “He thinks he’s destroying the sport of boxing by being disrespectful about great boxers and saying he wants to be world champion. Then when he saw Jake had private messaged Anna — that was the final straw. He believes Jake did it to get under his skin and to disrespect him.”
Main image: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing.