David Price did not place it for likes. He did not dump it in a promo catrol. He just quietly reminded the boxing world of something brutally: the most scary puncher he ever stood in front is now barely remembered – and barely alive.
“I once haunted a Russian named Denis Boytsov in Germany,” Price Daily Star Sport. “He just hit the top of my head, but he was a powerful puncher.”
That’s all it took. Not a loop right. Not a clean top cut. Just a look at the crown – and Price, who took push from the heaviest meetings of the division, still can’t forget it. It says everything.
Let us not sugar it. Price’s career has become a highlight of other people’s rise. He is flattened with names plastered over belts, posters and Dazn offers. But the man who left the deepest point was not one of them.
It was Boytsov.
And you hardly hear his name more.
He was 36-1. He had the momentum. He had the hands. He was set up for a world title. Then he disappeared. In May 2015, he was found unconscious between two Berlin train stations. Skull broken. Brain swollen. Medically induced coma. Seven weeks.
They said it was an ‘accident’.
The Berlin police had the bile to call it an ‘accident’. Meanwhile, Boytsov’s own website said it was linked to years of threats. His wife calls it mob revenge.
Price did not cut words: ‘He absolutely slapped and left a gang of Russian fellas. He couldn’t fight again. ‘
And he never did it.
Boysov dropped more than 30 kilograms in the hospital. Couldn’t talk. Could not walk. He was initially treated in Berlin and later transferred to a rehabilitation clinic in Hamburg. In August 2021, Boytsov was moved back to his native Russia for ongoing care. . He is still under 24-hour care, cannot speak and still needs help for daily activities.
All the sport went on – for the time being he never existed.
The hype went to safer hands. The belts went to ticket sellers. The world never saw what Boytsov could have been. He was buried under a system that never wanted him near a title.
No Comeback story. No salvation bow. No one cries in a microphone about how he “overcomes adversity”. He just disappeared.
And the next time someone starts listing that has hit the loudest – Tyson wants it – remember who David Price called.
It was not the poster boys. It was the one who never got his shot.
And we will never know what he could have done.
What a sad, sorry wastage.
