With cuts to her right eye and mouth, and blood turning her white trunks red, it would be easy to assume Lauren Price was the beaten fighter this evening in Cardiff. However, as we all know, the face of a fighter seldom accurately tells the story of a fight and this was again true in the case of Price’s 10-round decision win over Stephanie Pineiro.
Despite her facial injuries, Price was mostly in control of the bout and ran out a deserved and comfortable winner in the end. Yet that is not to say it was all one-way traffic. In fact, the damage done to Price’s face, which was apparent from round five, was a testament to Pineiro’s aggression, punch output, and ambition. The Puerto Rican, although often countered and outboxed, gave a tremendous account of herself in Wales and should maintain the belief that she can go on and become a world champion in the future.
For now, though, Price was is just a step too good – both for Pineiro and presumably most others in the welterweight division. As the current WBC, IBF and WBA champion, Price is already on top of the world and will now likely chase bigger, more lucrative fights having advanced her record to 10-0 (2 KOs). Sitting at ringside tonight, casting an eye over proceedings, was Claressa Shields, the American who, although currently at heavyweight, has expressed an interest in fighting Price before the end of the year. We shall see.
Certainly, of all the female champions in the world right now, Price, from Wales, would appear the only one on Shields’ level technically. Tonight’s performance was again evidence of this, with Pineiro – upright but game – the perfect foil for Price’s back-foot counterpunching style.
Between them the pattern was set as early as round one. In that round, Pineiro, a southpaw like Price, immediately claimed the centre of the ring and from this position aimed to go to work with her sharp and heavy-looking right jab. Already, it was clear that she had size in her favour and Price, the smaller fighter, had no choice but to use her legs to keep her lively challenger from setting her feet and unloading punches.
This Price did with typical excellence, moving one way and then the other, never staying still long enough for Pineiro to gain confidence, let alone have success. Not only that, Price would wait for Pineiro to throw punches and then, rather than just make her miss, exchange with her, often winning these exchanges by virtue of having the quicker hands.
There was a nice counter left cross in round two, for example, as well as a nice combination Price landed towards the end of that same round; a round in which Pineiro found herself caught more and more as she trudged forward. Getting caught was not enough to deter Pineiro, it seemed, yet a big shot in the third – a left cross – did momentarily wobble the challenger and represent the first major breakthrough in the fight for Price.
There were more clean shots landed by Price in round four, as she now found Pineiro a much easier target to hit. She also stood and traded a lot more in this round, which in turn gave Pineiro better opportunities to land stuff of her own and resulted in one or two exciting exchanges in the middle of the ring.
It was then, just as things started to heat up, blood began to pour from Price’s mouth – a cut caused by a head clash, she said afterwards – and this caused the champion to be a little smarter in navigating her way through round five and indeed the rest of the fight. Suddenly, despite looking so comfortable in the presence of Pineiro, Price had blood all over her face and all down her white top and white trunks. The colour red would become even darker when a cut to Price’s right eye in round seven gave Price another reason to be slightly concerned and Pineiro a reason to remain hopeful.
Yet Price, 31, is nothing if not smart and to protect herself from further damage all she had to do was continue using her legs and brain, which she did. She used both to good effect in the second half of the fight and even late on, when Pineiro knew she was behind and increased her urgency, Price expertly used her opponent’s aggression against her and continued to find gaps in her defence with jolting jabs and long left crosses.
In the end, though she carried the look of the loser, there was no doubting Lauren Price’s supremacy. She had been made to work for her win, and she would have preferred to not have been so damaged by Pineiro’s head, but Price was more than deserving of her unanimous decision victory (by scores of 98-92, 98-92 and 99-91).
