David Price returns to action tomorrow night, not ready to call it quits yet

“If I’m going out I need to go out knowing I’ve put everything into training”

David Price, 21-3-0-1(18) is ready to give it yet one more go. Last seen losing to Christian Hammer in February of this year – Price scoring an early-rounds knockdown before being stopped in the seventh-round – the giant from Liverpool will face little-known Kamil Sokolowski in Essex tomorrow night.

It’s a low-key return (Poland’s Sokolowski is 6-11(2) as a pro) but Price explained to The Mirror how his preparations for the Hammer fight were “nowhere near what it should have been,” and that he will only retire when he knows he has “put everything into training.”

“Immediately after the (Hammer) fight, I was thinking it was probably time to hang up my gloves,” Price told the newspaper. “I didn’t consider Christian Hammer to be someone who I should have been losing to so immediately after it, it was time to call it a day. But telling myself I didn’t really care actually helped me deal with the defeat because I wasn’t going to carry on boxing.”

But Price says that, after reflecting on how his training camp had been far from ideal, he decided to give it one more go and “go out on my own terms.” The 34 year old added how, “in an ideal world, I’ll give myself another four years.”

But can Price avoid another defeat over that length of time? Price will almost certainly do way with Sokolowski with no trouble tomorrow, but what then? Despite the reasons Price has spoken of when explaining his four defeats – Tony Thompson (who beat Price twice) and Erkan Teper both later failed a drugs test, while the former Olympian says he had poor training for the Hammer fight – fans insist that Price has been let down by his chin and stamina shortcomings.

Price has heart, otherwise he would have walked way for good a long time ago, and he has skill and punching power. Maybe Price has simply been an unlucky fighter; heaven knows he could do with some good luck in a big fight. But can Price get himself another big fight?