Why is David Price fighting Matt Skelton?

The Skelton fight wasn't made at short notice to keep him busy it was made way before that. Skelton has been lined up since before the Harrison fight they were sewing the seeds for the fight and announced it pretty much straight away after. Could they at least have tried to get Chisora or someone at least better than Skelton? The Skelton of 5 years ago I would say may have a chance but he's shot to pieces and won't offer anything in terms of experience, moving up the rankings, or add to his fan base or reputation.

People are saying "to win the Lonsdale belt outright" as if that is some kind of answer to the question. So it's ok to win a british title and then defend it against over the hill tomato cans just so you can keep it forever? Other fighters get stick for choosing these levels of opponents but somehow Price gets away with it, some people on here were saying Miranda was a poor opponent for Bellew, compare him to Skelton in relative terms and then bear in mind that Bellew and Price are almost the same age with almost the same number of fights!

We all know what is going to happen in this fight anyway so it's hardly worth watching, it's just pure cannon fodder and I'm not looking forward to hearing all the gas on here about what an amazing KO it was and how this means Price is the next Lennox Lewis etc.

 

Theres really no set time limit to win a British title, he can actually have meaningful fights in between joke British defences

 

Not by fighting Skelton he won't

 

I just don't get it, he's fighting in a relatively poor division and is apparently the next big thing and no one can take his power blah blah blah

Yet he's fighting absolute dross, to line up Skelton after Harrison is pretty unforgivable, the under card is utter gash too, it's a **** take to expect people to pay for that.

 

People will pay for it though

Price is the new poster boy for Scouse football fans who watch 5 fights a year and have massive opinions about boxing when big fights are on.

 

Outside Haye, Fury and Chisora, he is fighting in a dross division though. Let's be honest, the only guys that were viable for a defence were:

Matt Skelton
Michael Sprott
Martin Rogan

That's about it. Towers is going on a different path and the only other viable names at this stage have already lost to Price.

Sprott is the best of the aforementioned three and hopefully he is the last defence (assuming Chisora doesn't get his license), but it's not exactly a stellar line-up, is it?

Come on Ice, do you think he wouldn't be lambasted even more if he were to, for example, fight a solid European-level fighter and then drop back down to fight Skelton?

If he wants to win it outright like he seemingly does, then it would be best for him to just get it out of the way now, IMO.

 

People on here like David Price = Auto Pass

 

Skelton, Sprott and Rogan aren't the ONLY three options he had. And even of those three Skelton is the poorest choice. If FM had at least tried to make some better fights and got rejected or couldn't make it happen then fair enough but Skelton has been in the pipeline for a little while, at no point have I ever heard of any american or european opponents being muted for him. They just want to feed him easy British cannon fodder and build him up as a KO specialist.

It looks even worse now that Fury has secured a fight against Johnson at 3 weeks notice, how can they possibly say Skelton was the only viable opponent now?

I get that the division isn't jam packed with talent that want to fight each other but if you don't even attempt to make the fights then obviously they won't happen! The problem with the HW division is all the decent prospects want to avoid each other and just get hang on for a payday against a Klit!

 

All i'll say is he better fight someone decent next (no offence to skelton who's a good bloke)

 

Skelton took a fight on the undercard of Harrison vs PRice in case HArrison fell out, he would step in. Skelton kept his side of the bargain so Price is following through with the fight.

Domestically and on paper, this is an okay quick defence for Price.

 

No, i don't think that he would because he could honestly say that he is trying to improve his divisional ranking at the same time as wanting to win the Lonsdale outright. He'd have at least one less detractor in me.

 

Given that he is going for the Lonsdale belt outright his next fight is likely to be either Sprott, Rogan or Towers....unless he rematches one of the stiffs he has already fought. Is the fight after Skelton a mando defence??

 

i see what youre saying but if i was him id just want to get it out of the way and get it done by feburary march time, then he can forget about it and move on, i wouldnt like to keep chopping and changing in standard of opponent

 

If Im honest this is whats bothering me more than anything, its as though Price has a "must do" tick list. The Lonsdale Belt actually means something, it has an awesome history and Price is trying to do it on the cheap. Im no student of the game but I wouldn't be surprised if Prices Lonsdale quest is the worst run by a British heavyweight to win the strap outright.