David Price did not post it for the likes. He did not push it in a promotional coil. He simply calmly recalled the world of boxing of something brutal: the most scary piercing he was standing in front is now barely recalled – and barely alive.
“I faced a Russian called Denis Boytsov in Germany once,” Price told Daily Star Sport. “He only struck the top of my head, but he was a powerful pointer.”
That’s all it took. Not a loop on the right. Not a clean uppercut. Just a glance at the crown – and Price, who punched the heaviest strikers in the division, still cannot forget it. That said everything.
Do not coat of the Suche. Price’s career has turned into a highlighting coil for the rise of others. He was flattened by plastered names through the belts, posters and offers from Dazn. But the man who left the deepest brand was none of them.
It was Boytsov.
And you barely hear its name.
He had 36-1. He had the momentum. His hands had. He was aligned for a worldwide shooting. Then he disappeared. In May 2015, it was found unconscious between two Berlin stations. Fractured skull. The swollen brain. Coma medically induced. Seven weeks.
They said it was an “accident”.
Berlin police had the cheek to call him an “accident”. Meanwhile, the Boytsov’s own website said it was linked to years of threats. His wife called him Mob Revenge.
Price did not mow the words: “He was absolutely beaten by a Russian guy gang and left for death. He could not fight again.”
And he never did it.
Boytsov has lost more than 30 kilos in the hospital. Could not speak. Couldn’t walk. Initially treated in Berlin, it was then transferred to a rehabilitation clinic in Hamburg. In August 2021, Boytsov was sent back to his native Russia for continuous care. . It is always lower than 24 hours a day, unable to speak and continues to require help for daily activities.
While sport evolved, which claimed that it never existed.
The beaten media went to safer hands. The belts went to ticket sellers. The world has never seen what Boytsov could have been. He was buried under a system that never wanted it near a title.
No story of return. No redemption arc. No one cries in a microphone on the way he “overcome adversity”. He just disappeared.
And the next time someone will start to list who hit the hardest – David Price appointed.
It was not the boys of the poster. He’s the one who never had his blow.
And we will never know what he could have done.
What a sad and sorry waste.
