David Price vs. Christian Hammer on Feb.4

BoxingNews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: #6 WBO heavyweight contender David Price (21-3, 18 KOs) will be fighting #12 WBO fringe contender Christian Hammer (20-4, 11 KOs) on February 4 on the undercard of the super middleweight fight between IBO champion Renold Quinlan and Chris Eubank Jr. at the Olympian in London, England.

This will be on ITV pay-per-view. I don’t know what Price vs. Hammer will do for the Eubank Jr-Quinlan PPV card in terms of bringing in buys from the British boxing fans. The addition of Price-Hammer fight is likely going to have little effect to the PPV sales.

Hammer promoter Ceylan announced the fight today. It’s not a great fight. If Price were facing someone like Dillian Whyte, Dereck Chisora or Luis Ortiz, then I could see the fight attracting some fans to purchase the card. Price-Hammer is not a great fight though, and neither is the main event. I still don’t know why Eubank Jr. chose Quinlan to fight. It makes no sense at all.

This is a winnable fight for Price as long as his chin holds up under the occasional shots he gets nailed with by the 6’2” Hammer. Price, 33, likely won’t get an early knockout, because Hammer can take punishment. He recently beat former Price conqueror Erkan Teper by a 12 roun split decision last October to win the vacant WBO European heavyweight title.

Teper didn’t come into the fight in the greatest of shape at 265lbs, however. An in shape Teper likely would have done a number on Hammer. Never the less, Hammer got the win, and he handled Teper’s big shots all night long without dropping for the 10 count. Teper knocked out Price in just two rounds in 2015. It tells you something about Hammer that he could take Teper’s big punches without getting knocked out.

Hammer was stopped by Mariusz Wach in the 6th round in July 2010. Hammer was also beaten by Taras Bidenko by a 6 round majority decision in 2010 as well. As you can see, Hammer is far from being the greatest fighter in the world, and he probably shouldn’t be ranked in the top 15 at this time. The WBO is the only sanctioning body that has Hammer ranked in their top 15. I don’t see Hammer as a top 15 quality fighter. Of course, I also don’t rate Price as a top 15 guy either. I see Price as more of a bottom 50 level heavyweight. Even with that ranking, I’m being very kind to Price, because you can argue that he should be ranked no higher than 100 in the overall heavyweight rankings. You’ve be able to take a good head shot without nose diving down onto the canvas, and I don’t see Price as having the capability of taking any kind of a decent head shot without getting knocked out. Price can dish it out, but he can’t take it.

A win for the 6’8” Price over Hammer should push him up in the rankings to within striking distance of a title shot. Still, it might not mean a whole heck of a lot of Price can’t take the power of whoever is the heavyweight title by the time he challenges. As of now, Joseph Parker is the World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion after his close and some would say controversial victory over Andy Ruiz Jr. last December.

Parker can punch, and I can’t see Price beating him in this lifetime. Parker is in negotiations for a fight against Hughie Fury. If those two face each other, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Parker lose. Of course, it might be hard for Hughie to get the nod if fails to make it a clear win, because the fight will likely take place in Parker’s home country of New Zealand. Price would stand a good chance against Hughie, but not Parker. There’s also a chance that Parker could fight a unification fight against either IBF champion Anthony Joshua or WBC champion Deontay Wilder in 2017. If one of them gets their hands on the WBO title, then Price will never win the belt in my view. I guess it wouldn’t matter. If he can get a title shot against Joshua, he’ll get life changing money for that fight.

Price is still trying to rebuild his shattered boxing career from his two defeats at the hands of the forty-something old Tony Thompson and Erkan Teper. Price has won his last two fights, but against very, very weak opposition in Ivica Perkovic (22-30) and Vaclav Pejsar (9-2). The fact that Price was pulled back so far by his promoters in putting him in with fighters that you would see novices facing in their first fights of their careers suggest that they’re pushing the reset button on his career.

Putting Price back in with a semi-live opponent like Hammer could prove to be a mistake on Price’s promoter’s part. I mean, Hammer is flawed as heck as a fighter, but he’s got some decent pop in his punches, and like I said, he can take a healthy punch for a number of rounds. Tyson Fury stopped Hammer in the 8th round in February 2015, but the fight was so one-sided. Hammer looked like he was mentally defeated by the 8th. He was defeated long before Fury stopped him in the 8th.

If Hammer has some success early against Price, I don’t see him giving up later in the fight. He’ll certainly be looking to take Price’s head off with every punch he throws. That’s bad news for Price, because it means that Hammer is going to probably be around long enough in this fight to test his chin repeatedly with his best right hands. I don’t think Hammer is a big puncher by any means, but he can punch at least as hard as Tony Thompson. We saw what Thompson did to Price in their two fights. Price was knocked out twice by the slapping shots from Thompson.

All I can say about the Price-Hammer fight is that Price is in a must-win situation here. I don’t know if he realizes that or not. This is a guy that Price SHOULD beat without any problems if he’s going anywhere in the heavyweight division. If Price can’t even beat Hammer, then I think he might need to seriously consider retiring from the sport. I see no coming back from a loss to Hammer for Price. Price’s defeats to Thompson and Teper were bad enough, but a loss to Teper, I think that will officially finish off Price’s career. Price can certainly continue fighting, but I can’t see him going anywhere.

Also on the card is middleweight Adam Etches facing John Ryder and featherweight Kid Galahad fighting a still to be determined opponent.