Chisora & Price: High Stakes For Both

Chisora & Price: High Stakes For Both

By Shaun Rye

A hush descends on the stage of the Prograis/Taylor press conference, pierced only by the gentle chuckle of nervous laughter as three men who are seldom lost for words, fidget in their seats as Del Boy Chisora begins an unexpected tirade, questioning his place on the bill as ‘chief-support’.

Eddie Hearn, Kalle Sauerland and Adam Smith normally have no trouble filling press conference silences, but on this occasion they looked sideways at each other as if to prompt one another to respond until finally Eddie Hearn rather apprehensively attempted to gather some support saying

“Kalle I’m going to pass over to you here, or Adam, one of you.”

You can’t blame any media representatives for being nervous in that room, or even Eddie Hearn for that matter as Chisora’s reputation precedes him. After all, he’s thrown tables, slapped heavyweight champs and spat in their face, brawled with fighters during press conferences and much more.

Del Boy didn’t relent in his pursuit of answers as to why he wasn’t the main event, citing ticket sales as one of the main arguments and even declaring that

“Nobody gives a f*ck about the Ali trophy man.”

It of course now turns out that the fight with Parker has been scrapped and as short term replacements go, David Price seems a pretty good one if fans’ reaction is anything of a barometer.

Chisora/Price is a fascinating match up whichever way you look at it. Chisora, the outspoken extrovert, an exciting fighter with a very heavy punch, a great finisher and the ability to hurt any heavyweight fighter.

David Price, by comparison a quiet man and a giant frame that has the attributes to box very well should he stay disciplined enough.

Fight fans will remember the relative early success that Price had against Povetkin, looking quite sharp and hurting the Russian until that crushing knockout.

It was a fight that seemed to unite most UK fans in the belief that Price should call it a day. He didn’t and after a disappointing fight against Sergey Kuzmin, where he retired on his stool, has come back with wins against Brits Tom Little, Kash Ali and Dave Allen.

Chisora has had excellent knockout victories against Takam and Szpilka among his most recent bouts, with a second defeat to Dillian Whyte in between. The finish against Polish man Szpilka last time out was particularly impressive, with a variety of punches finding their home including a left that ripped through the body, before a devastating right hand ended the flurry and the fight.

It often appears that motivation is the key to Chisora’s chances. If he is highly motivated and the stakes are high, he can be an extremely dangerous prospect, which was the case for the performance he turned out in the first Whyte fight where many had him at least drawing.

The one thing you would have to consider, is whether the change in trainer (Don Charles and more recently Dave Coldwell) although amicable, has had an affect on him. Anger, frustration or a mere tactic to extract more money from the promoters and broadcasters, something had irked him enough to consider pulling out of the original fight against Parker and that was a contest that surely would have catapulted him closer to another sizeable showdown with one of the heavyweight elite.

As it is, he has to settle for a domestic dust-up and although he obviously has a healthy respect for Price, you wonder whether this contest will produce the same fire in his belly.

If the best version of both fighters turn up, the smart money would be on Chisora to win via knockout. Even if Price manages to negate Chisora’s work early by jabbing and keeping it long, we would have to see movement from Price that we haven’t seen before if he was to keep him off.

That’s not to say Price can’t have success against Del by keeping it simple and taking half a step in behind the jab with a straight right but too often he gets embroiled in a tear up, trading leather when he really ought to be sticking to boxing outside of range.

Price will hope that Del gets sloppy and lazy with his tempo. Chisora has had trouble with tall heavyweights in the past, suffering defeats to Fury and Klitschko, but they are a different class of opposition and it would be classed as somewhat of an upset should Price manage to replicate any of those performances against his compatriot.