‘I’m the one English fighter to beat Tyson Fury – now I’m a heating engineer’
The only English fighter to have beaten Tyson Fury in the ring is now thriving as a heating engineer.
Fury, who is gearing up for his colossal heavyweight unification clash with Oleksandr Usyk in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night, might be undefeated as a pro, but his amateur record wasn’t spotless, suffering four losses out of 31 fights. One of those defeats was at the hands of David Price, who had a fiery rivalry with the Gypsy King before they both entered the professional scene.
Back in the day, Fury tried to ruffle Price’s feathers by penning a cheeky letter to Boxing News ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games, where Price bagged a super-heavyweight bronze. Price recalled the incident with the Mirror, in association with Grosvenor Sport, saying: “I remember him rattling me a little bit for that fight.
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Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are set to lock horns in a huge clash this month with each fighter attempting to etch their names in boxing history as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999. The stakes couldn’t be higher as the pair will go head to head for the prestigious WBC, WBA, WBO, and IBF titles.
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“He wrote a letter to Boxing News saying he was going to take my place in the Olympics and beat me and beat me again, this and that.”
Price was taken aback by the unusual move, noting: “No one had ever really seen that as an amateur, a letter to the Boxing News, but that was typical of the background he’d come from. I had to deal with that.
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(Image: YouTube)
“I was like, ‘who’s this kid?’ He won a medal in the World Junior Championships as well at the time, which is not easy to do, so I knew he was capable of doing what he said.”
But Fury’s jibes only spurred Price on, leading to his victory on points. Reflecting on the outcome, Price added: “Maybe that wasn’t his intentions, but I just remember getting in there and wanting to do a number on him and put him in his place.
“It was a good fight and I never thought he’d go on to do what he’s gone on to do. He used to talk and talk and I just never, ever thought he would walk what he was talking. He proved me wrong, and good on him. I’ll probably be the only Englishman to beat him, unless AJ fights him and manages to do a number on him.
“That [not fighting Fury] was down to me losing, basically,” reflected Price, 40. “I was one fight away from it happening. That was one regret, that I didn’t get a big fight.
(Image: PA)
“My biggest fight was probably [Alexander] Povetkin or [Derek] Chisora. I was involved in some of my own big fights, but I would like to have fought someone like Tyson Fury and at the time I was supposed to fight him. Even to this day, I think I had a great chance of beating him at that time, but then once I lost, everything seems to fall off the rails a bit for me.”
Price, who retired after losing to Chisora in 2019, has found life after boxing with a thriving heating business and admits he doesn’t have time to miss the sport, although he remains deeply passionate about it.
“I’ve run my own business doing insulation, heating and renewable energy stuff,” he said. “It’s just back-to-back busy every single day apart from the weekend, but I love it.
(Image: Getty)
“I’m lucky that I’ve found something that I enjoy after sport. I know that a lot of sportsmen have that problem when they retire. It’s working out for me, touch wood.”
On how he fell into his new line of work, he explained: “I didn’t know what I was going to do until I kind of fell into this. It was the Covid lockdown time and I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“There was always a cause for concern for me in regards to what was I going to do when I finished [boxing], to keep the providing for my family. I just kind of transitioned into this and it was the perfect time. I’m thankful that I was lucky enough, but I’ve worked bloody hard as well to do what I’m doing now and I continue to do so. Long may that continue.”
