THE return of Liverpool’s David Price to prominence with an impressive victory over Dave “The White Rhino” Allen at the O2 in London last weekend, fighting on the undercard of Whyte v Rivas, breathed life into the poetic justice that comes with having the last laugh over your detractors.

Price is a fighter who has had his own personal army of detractors to contend with, subjected to a shower of ridicule, disdain, abuse and disrespect by fans and trolls on social media in the wake of losing past performances. It got so bad that it managed to drive him off social media for a time, and who knows the kind of pain he endured when things were at their worst.

His joy in being able to claim the last laugh after his impressive and near punch-perfect victory over Allen by TKO was made clear afterwards, when during a post-fight interview with IFL TV Price took a moment to level a sincere “fuck you!” to the camera at his critics. Here was a fighter who’d been to hell and back, suffering his share of defeats and KOs, and yet had refused to quit or listen to the naysayers.

It takes an extraordinary surplus of will and tenacity to go through what the 6’8” heavyweight went through and still carry on. It also takes the unfailing support and belief of family and close friends. 

Price’s journey in boxing is a valuable lesson in life when it comes to the role not of inspiration but perseverance in prevailing against seemingly overwhelming odds. It is that aspect of boxing, indeed sport in general, which touches something deep, confirming time and again the power of self-belief and dedicated application to a single goal in providing meaning and purpose.

Allen, a personable Yorkshireman who’s had his own issues to contend with in and out of the ring, was the firm favourite going in. Before the first bell rang against Price, talk of a future fight against Alexander Povetkin was doing the rounds to leave no doubt that Price was being viewed as a door for Allen to walk through instead of an obstacle to overcome.

It was a fatal mistake and, after being stretchered out of the ring with an oxygen mask over his face after his corner stopped the fight between the 10th and 11th rounds, Allen is now looking at retirement.

Fortunately, his visit to hospital immediately after the fight was more about making sure he was OK than treating him for serious injury or damage. It was a refreshing example of a fighter’s health and safety being placed at the centre of the promotion, which is a credit to Eddie Hearn and Matchroom.

Hearn, in fact, has been vocal in calling for a paramedic and oxygen to be a mandatory presence ringside at every professional bout in the world, arguing persuasively that the initial few seconds and minutes after a fighter is KO’d or badly shaken in defeat are the most crucial in doing whatever it takes to ensure that he or she isn’t left permanently injured or disabled.

When it comes to the psychological and emotional scars of defeat, those are impossible to see and much harder to quantify. David Price certainly carries more than a few of those, and so does Dave Allen. 

On a wider level, the days immediately after suffering a defeat in a high profile fight in front of a potentially combined live and TV audience of millions has to be a kind of torture. 

In the build-up the chaos created by the media, fans rushing to secure tickets, camera crews in gyms where the respective fighters involved are putting the final touches to their preparations, fielding a myriad of questions at press conferences, must be likewise exhilarating and exhausting.

The promotion puts everything into maximising publicity, placing the fighters in a bubble of hype as they try to turn them in the eyes of the paying public into living gods. Imagine the character it takes for a fighter to go through this and not become caught up in it, making sure his adrenalin isn’t over-stimulated by the media attention and sense of occasion before climbing into the ring for the actual fight itself.

The ecstasy of victory exists next to the humiliation of defeat in a boxing ring. The former brings adulation, opportunity and personal validation. The latter invites disdain, uncertainty and self-recrimination. Beautiful and cruel in equal measure are the stakes involved in the fight game, just they are in the game of life.

In his classic work “The Fight” on the 1974 epic heavyweight Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, Norman Mailer describes how fatigue in the ring “brings boxers to the boiler rooms of the damned,” and how at such moments “they live at a height of consciousness and with a sense of detail they encounter nowhere else.”

Arguably, the real “boiler rooms of the damned for fighters” is that place they inhabit in the aftermath of a crushing defeat. It is then when facing their demons and fears prior to the fight must have seemed like child’s play compared to now having to face their detractors and critics after it. 

David Price could write the book on what this feels like. And it’s because he can that his victory at the O2 last weekend must have felt sweeter than all of his previous victories together. The heartfelt “fuck you!” he levelled at those who’d succeeded in making his life hell until last weekend should take note.

He’s back.