Lauren Price: The Homecoming

Lauren Price: The Homecoming

By Garry White

Lauren Price has rapidly become one of the most significant figures in the current female boxing scene. Her upcoming headliner this weekend on the Boxxer-promoted show at the Cardiff International Arena, against Stephanie Pineiro Aquino, presents her with another chance to take centre stage and showcase her fighting talents.

Saturday night will mark Price’s first appearance back in her native Wales since securing the WBA welterweight title at the same venue against Jessica McCaskill almost two years ago. In a classy and mature performance, Price won every round before they went to the cards early (McCaskill was unable to continue due to an earlier accidental clash of heads), and a home-corner ‘shut-out’ was recorded.

It was an exhibition of such authority and control that Price’s promoter, Ben Shalom, purred afterwards that the self-proclaimed ‘Lucky One’ is a once-in-a-generation sporting talent”. Normally, we could put these words down to the usual hyperbole that we have come to expect from promoters, especially one desperate for a star to hang his television coverage on. However, in Price’s case, Shalom’s words are not without justification.

There has been an inevitability around Price’s relentless progress. Olympic and World Championship golds for Team GB, interspersed with a Commonwealth Games gold for Wales and assorted medals of various hues, positioned her for success in the paid ranks. Of course, elite amateur pedigree is not always a guaranteed barometer for success in the pros. However, in the often-thinner women’s divisions, it would have taken an awful lot to have gone wrong for Price not to have got her hands on a world title of some sort.

The question from day one should not have been: ‘Can Price win a world title?’ That was surely a given. Such a statement is not meant to minimise an obviously laudable achievement. Although in a fight landscape that gives you four (five if you include the IBO – and let’s not get into Dana White and Zuffa territory!) bites of the world championship cherry, you could argue that boxing does that all by itself. But for Price, the minimum aim had to be ‘undisputed’ – something that Catford’s Ellie Scotney will be hoping to grab on Sunday night at London Olympia – and the upper echelons of the global female pound-for-pound rankings.

Anything below that is merely an average return on her abundant skills, talent and pedigree. Basically, her basement is most other fighters’ ceiling.

Nine fights in, Price already has three of the major straps (WBA, WBC, and IBF). The last two baubles were won 12 months ago in dominant fashion in a unification contest against the hugely experienced Natasha Jonas at the historic Royal Albert Hall. In yet another spectacularly convincing performance, Price outworked and beat Jonas to every punch. Given Jonas’ veteran status, this felt like a real ‘passing of the torch’ moment from the old to the new.

The 31-year-old also has her name etched into immortality as the first woman ever to have a Lonsdale Belt strapped around her waist. Mystic Meg wasn’t required to summon her crystal ball to foreshadow Price’s ten-round shut-out of Kirstie Bavington on a May evening in 2023.

That’s essentially the problem with Price. When you win pretty much every round that you fight, with a couple of stoppages thrown in along the way, it can all feel a bit predictable. Of course, this isn’t her fault. One of the things about being categorised as ‘elite’ is that you look up to nobody and down on almost everyone else. Only the likes of WBO belt-holder Mikaela Mayer can attempt to look Price squarely in the eye.

That’s why, without being uncharitable, it feels difficult to get up for this one. Perhaps the same is always true when it comes to this type of match-up. The challenger, Aquino, arrives in Cardiff as the WBA’s ‘mandatory’ and, on the face of it, is unbeaten in ten. However, in boxing, the arithmetic only tells you part of the story. Crucially, Aquino has never fought outside of her native Puerto Rico. The bookmakers have Price at 1/16, which no doubt adequately reflects the level of peril she will encounter on Saturday night.

And it isn’t really because Aquino isn’t any good. Although she is unproven. Instead, it is that I am certain — as are the bookies — that Price will be miles better.

No doubt ‘The Lucky One’ will have her arm raised at the end, and families can happily watch it all on BBC Two. There is something retro and wholesome about that, and it presents the opportunity to tap further into the type of audience that boxing used to attract before it snarled off behind paywalls and PPV.

And then it’ll be on to the next one. Mikaela Mayer for all the belts would be the perfect fight. But coming up strong on the outside is the motor-mouthed Claressa Shields, who competes and wins at any weight she fancies. Both of those fights come laced with spectacle, danger and intrigue. 

The bookies may even need to think a bit harder before pricing them up as well.

Photo Credit: Chris Dean/Boxxer