David Price vs. Raphael Zumbano Love on September 16

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: The recent thrashing heavyweight David Price (21-4, 18 KOs) received at the hands of Christian Hammer hasn’t dissuaded him from continuing his sagging career, as he plans on fighting on September 16 against 36-year-old journeyman Raphael Zumbano Love (39-15-1, 32 KOs) at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England.

The Price vs. Love fight will be taking place on the undercard of the super middleweight clash between Callum Smith and Erik Skoglund fight in the World Boxing Super Series tourney.

A loss to Love will surely signal the end of Price’s 8-year pro career. Surely, he can’t continue his career after a loss to journeyman like Love. It’s one thing for Price to get knocked out by fringe contenders like Tony Thompson [twice], Erkan Teper and Christian Hammer, and quite another thing for him to lose to Zumbano Love. To continue fighting after getting beaten by Love would be a signal that Price is willing to accept just being a domestic level fighter. I’m sure Price had a lot more ambitions than this when he started his career.

Price is no longer being trained by Dave Coldwell. He’s now under the guidance of George Vaughan, Derry Mathews and Joe McNally. Those guys are going to need to be miracle workers for them to be able to turn Price’s career around. Hopefully they can help Price lose around 30 pounds, improve his stamina, and then come up with some ideas to keep him from getting knocked out so easily.

I’m wondering who planted the idea in 34-year-old Price’s head to make him want to continue his career. I mean, it’s pretty much academic at this point that Price doesn’t have the talent, chin and stamina to make a big splash in the heavyweight division. Fighting journeyman Zumbano Love isn’t going to prove anything. Heck, even if Price wins, he’s still going to be up against it as soon as he’s thrown into the ring with someone with a halfway decent punch. I’m just saying.

It was thought that Price was finished after his loss to Hammer last February. It’s been 6 months since that loss, and it looks like something or someone has Price thinking that he can still find success in his career.

Price’s once promising career has really gone downhill since 2013, when he was twice knocked out by fringe contender Tony Thompson. That was big mistake on Price’s part to take on an experienced heavyweight like Thompson at that early stage in his career. Price came into the first Thompson fight with a 15-0 record compiled against poor opposition. Price should have slowly worked his way up to the stage where he was fighting fringe level guys instead of making such a huge jump. It might not have mattered anyway. No matter how slowly Price was brought along in his career, if he couldn’t take a hard punch without nosediving down to the canvas, then it’s immaterial that his career was rushed a little in 2013.

One thing that Price needs to work on to make sure he doesn’t end up gassing out like he did against Hammer is for him to lose some weight. Price weighed in at 275 pounds for the Hammer fight. That’s 25 lbs. more than when Price was arguably at his best weight when he destroyed Matt Skelton on November 30, 2012. That was Price at the zenith of his career in my opinion.

Price looked good in that fight. Price kept his weight down in the 250 regions until he took 10 months off from boxing following his 2nd round knockout loss to Erkan Teper on July 17, 2015. When Price subsequently returned to the ring against little known Vaclav Pejsar on May 29 last year, he had bulked up to 271 lbs. I don’t know if you can call that a situation where Price bulked up. It just looked to me like he had gotten out of shape during his time off from competition and he hadn’t bothered to take the weight off.

Price chose to keep the weight on for his next fight against journeyman Ivica Perkovic in October last year. Price weighed 278 lbs. for that fight, but he was able to stop him in the 2nd round. Perkovic didn’t have the punching power or the offense to push Price, and make him fight hard the way that Christian Hammer did earlier this year. Against Hammer, Price gassed out early in the fight, looking tired after the 2nd round. Price was able to get his second wind in the 5th round and drop Hammer. However, in knocking Hammer down, Price once again gassed out and stayed that way for the remainder of the fight. Two rounds later, Hammer stopped an exhausted Price in the 7th. I blame that defeat entirely on Price’s conditioning. He did not look well trained. He was too fat, and he looked like he hadn’t gone through a proper training camp for the fight.

The good news for Price is Love was knocked out in the 1st round in his last fight against Alexander Ustinov on May 19. Love has lost 3 out of his last 5 fights since 2016. Love is someone that has some pop in his punches. I don’t know if Price realizes this or not, but Love has more than enough power to knock him out if he can get past the first 3 to 4 rounds.

Love tends to throw a lot of wild power shots, but when he lands them, he’s quite capable of scoring knockouts. Love has never beaten anyone good though, so that’s a huge plus for Price. But then again, Price isn’t very good and he has to be viewed as someone that Love has a real potential of destroying in this fight. Love certainly isn’t short on experience. He’s been in the ring with a ton of talented fighters during his career. Price is heading towards journeyman status himself if he sticks around in boxing for too much longer. As such, we’re basically talking about 2 journeyman level fighters facing off on September 16. It’s a crap shoot.

Here are some of the well-known fighters that Love has lost to:

– Gbenga Olukun

– Gonzalo Omar Basile

– Jovo Pudar

– Eric Molina

– Charles Martin

– Anthony Joshua

– Andy Ruiz Jr.

– Otto Wallin

– Alexander Ustinov

You would think that Love just being in the ring with those guys would improve him enough to potentially beat the 6’8” stork-like Price, but we’ll have to see. Like I said, if Love can get past the first 3 to 3 to 4 rounds against Price, has had a decent chance of knocking him out when/if he gasses out on schedule. Price would be smart to make sure that he loses the weight that he’s put on since his knockout loss to Teper in 2015. If Price comes into the Love fight at around 250 and is in appropriate shape, then he’ll have a chance of blowing out Love quickly with a flurry of shots.