I see a lot of comments making comparisons to Wlad getting KO'd by Saunders, or Lewis getting sparked by McCall and Rahman. The next step is to say that like Wlad and Lewis, Price can come back and go on to great things. Wrong. Wlad was hit by MAJOR shots by Saunders. You can say that he shouldn't have LET Saunders tag him that way, but the fact is that it was a couple of huge bombs that took him out. Bombs that would have seriously hurt ANY heavyweight. Lewis was KO'd by a prime McCall, who was a fearsome fighter (Tyson refused to even spar with him after McCall gave him more than he could handle in sparring). And again, it was a sweet, mega-punch right on the spot that got Lewis. Same with Rahman, who while perhaps not the worlds greatest boxer, had serious power, and landed the best punch of his career right on Lewis's chin. Nobody would have stood up to that shot. Sure, Lewis shouldn't have let himself get HIT with the shot....but that's not the point. The point is, as with Wlad, that it was seriously powerful punches that KO'd them, by BIG hitters. Price was KO'd by Tony Thompson, who is a great guy, and a very decent fighter, but who by NO stretch of the imagination has Saunders', McCall's or Rahman's power. And the punch that took Price out was a minor tap, one that almost any other HW would have shrugged off. But it put Price on ***** street. I was in the 6th row at the fight, and had a good view of the KO. It was a glorified love-tap....and no more. Price has a problem that all the training in the world can't fix. He is a long, skinny fighter with a very long neck. The guys who are tough to KO usually have short (or NO) necks. It's pretty obvious that a no-neck guy who's hit in the head will not have the head snap the way a guy with a long neck will. And it's the head snap that rattles the brain, and causes the loss of equilibrium. This is simple physics, and explains why you don't see that many really tall skinny guys at the top. Wlad suffers from this to some extent......and he is still a little chinny, as demonstrated in his last fight where one (admittedly solid) punch by Wach had Wlad's knee wobbling. Perhaps fortunately for him, this was RIGHT at the bell, so he had time to recover. But this punch by Wach was a LOT more solidly delivered than the punch that took out Price, and Wlad's chin isn't actually that bad.....he's taken some major shots from Peter and others without showing any signs of being ready to go. And Wlad's defence is great.....whereas Price doesn't really HAVE a defence. Up until this fight, Price had barely been touched, due to VERY careful matchmaking. The first time he was put in with a live body.....BOOM. If Thompson can knock Price silly, there are plenty of other guys out there capable of doing the same thing. Unless he can figure out a strategy that let's him do all the hitting, without ever getting hit back, he will be stuck where he has been since the start of his career......at the domestic level. So this leaves on Fury as the "Great British Hope". Fury, in his CURRENT shape, which is seriously GOOD shape, will actually surprise a lot of his critics in the next two years. The old Fury was something of a joke.....soft, fat, and with no muscle tone. But you have to give credit where credit is due....Fury has been tearing it up in the gym, and it REALLY shows. He is starting to look scary. I for one will be VERY surprised if Fury is exposed the way Price was. But we'll find out pretty soon, as Cunnigham is anything but a pushover, despite his relatively small size.
