Dave Allen returns to the ring on Saturday’s Dillian Whyte-Oscar Rivas undercard against fellow countryman David Price.
For the 27-year-old Brit, his boxing career has been up and down.
Since making his debut in 2012, Allen has picked up 17 wins with 14 coming via knockout. But when he’s taken on the heavy hitters in the heavyweight division, Allen’s come up on the short side of the stick in losing efforts vs. Dillian Whyte and Luis Ortiz. Now the ‘White Rhino’ has changed his whole outlook and has been putting in some serious effort to turn his career around with the help of former IBF middleweight world champion Darren Barker.
“I only trained for my last two fights,”Allen admits to Sporting News. “I didn’t train for the others that I won. I wasn’t preparing at all for them fights just the last two out of all my fights. I was a bit blasé about it all, to be honest. I’m not sure if it was overconfidence or because I just didn’t care what happened. But the last two fights I’ve really turned it around. I guess I kind of thought ‘David from Doncaster can’t possibly be successful’.
“I just didn’t really believe that it was attainable to be where I’m at now and where I want to be, but now I fully believe it, and I want it, so I’m putting the work in.”
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Allen knew the way things were trending that he’d be known as a gatekeeper. If he wanted to try and break through the proverbial glass ceiling, Allen needed help in the worst possible way and reached out to Barker.
“It came about via a phone call,” Allen said. “I called him looking for a friend as I was in a bad place at the time. He said to come down to his gym and do a bit of training, and I really enjoyed it. We kept it going for a few consecutive weeks, and now we are here, he’s my trainer and will be in the corner on Saturday, and I think we just get on really well as people and he’s a former world champion, I respect him and really work hard for him.”
“It was a great shot, a perfect body shot” Allen gleefully said of his third-round knockout over Lucas Browne in April. “If Vasily Lomachenko or Terrence Crawford would have thrown that then everyone would be talking about it, but it was the best shot of my career so far. I’m a front foot counter puncher, that’s how I would describe myself. I like using my physical strength and being on the front foot all the time.
"I don’t throw a thousand punches a round. If I hit you, I will stop you with one shot, which I’ve proven in my last few fights. That has given me a lot of confidence. I want to be heavyweight champion of the world. That is the goal. That’s the dream, and it is only a dream at the minute, but that’s where I want to go.”
His opponent David Price (24-6, 19 KOs) offers Allen a lot of problems in this fight. Price is taller, longer range and has more ring experience to tip the bout all in favor of the Liverpool born pugilist. Regardless of what the statistics say, Allen is extremely confident he can be victorious with a knockout performance.
“I’m going to outbox him,” Allen said, “People will laugh at that, but I have the style and the ability to outbox him, so that’s what I’ll do. I’ll stop him within three rounds.”