Jason Quigley has spent 16 years serving his boxing apprenticeship; as an amateur travelling the world and proudly wearing the green vest of Ireland, and then on to America to begin a professional career at the world famous Oscar De La Hoya-fronted Golden Boy Promotions.
Thirty-two wins out of 33 elite fights in his final days as an amateur en route to securing gold at the Europeans, and an unprecedented Irish silver medal at the 2013 World Championship placed Quigley on a fast-track to the paid ranks.
And the Donegal man hit the ground running, enjoying 12 straight victories as a professional fighter.
Fight number 13 in March of last year, saw Quigley announce his world-level intentions as he faced Glen Tapia at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Palm Springs.
New Jersey middleweight Tapia had been in with some of the division’s best prospects and this was a fight that was set to prove Quigley belonged in that particular conversation.
Headlining the card, which was live on ESPN, Quigley started like a train, dominating the opening round, landing clean shots and putting immediate pressure on his opponent.
"When Tapia walked back to his corner, he looked like a guy that was out too late on Friday night," said the ESPN commentator, anticipating a short night at the office for the Irish prospect.
More of the same followed and Tapia’s corner were paid a visit by the commissioner at the end of the the second round to check that their fighter was fit to continue.
Little did they know that it was the Irish boxer who was in distress.
"It happened in the second round," Quigley recalled, taking time out from his final preparations in Boston to talk to RTE Sport, ahead of tonight’s fight with Daniel Rosario.
"I remember hitting him with a straight backhand and I knew something went in the hand. I was thinking, this is the last thing I need in my first title fight, my first headline, my first main event live on ESPN.
"I was just thinking about winning the fight and trying to get through it. But it also showed me that I can switch and adapt to different situations and I am happy that I was no pushover either, fighting with one hand."
I'll let the photo speak for its self...but before I do....EIGHT MORE ROUNDS ONE HANDED. @jay_quigley #NABF pic.twitter.com/rCG5PNjRH4
— Rachel Charles (@PitchInk) March 25, 2017
Back in 2009, Quigley won gold at the European Youth Championships in the Polish city of Szezecin and spent the next four years representing Ireland at home and abroad, adding another European gold in 2012 at the Under-23 Championships in Kalingrad.
A year later, Quigley was virtually unstoppable. The Ballybofey man beat Roy Sheahan to land the Irish middleweight elite title at the Stadium before going on to secure gold at the men’s European Championships in Minsk that summer.
Later that year, Quigley represented Ireland at the AIBA World Championships and his stock rose even higher as he made it all the way to the final, where he was outpointed by Zhanibek Alimkhanuly from Kazakhstan, who had the advantage of not having to fight in the semi-finals due to an injury to England’s Antony Fowler.
The Olympics looked like the obvious next step for Quigley, but the Rio Games were still over two and a half years away and Quigley was presented with a range of professional offers from the industry’s biggest players, including Top Rank Boxing and Golden Boy.
Quigley admits that he was in a very good place at the time, being part of the high performance unit and was also involved with the Sky Sports Scholarship programme.
"What an amazing set-up in that national team and the high performance unit when I was there with Billy Walsh and Zaur Antia," said Quigley.
"We had every opportunity and if you were dedicated and successful, you went on and achieved, because you were given everything you needed.
"It was very difficult because, obviously, I was in a great routine and a great set-up with the national team, and I was starting to get paid a lot of money as well.
"It was a very good life that I was living. Up in Dublin Monday to Friday, home at the weekends, travelling around the world, winning medals here, there and everywhere.
But the lure of the professional game and the childhood dream of becoming world champion saw Quigley ultimately hang up that green singlet and head to the west coast of America.
"The reason I got into boxing was to be a world professional champion. The Olympic Games and World Championships only became a goal when it became a reality. But the fire burning deep down inside of me was to be world professional champion."
"Obviously that run in 2013 when I won the national seniors, European gold, world silver medal, was world number one as an amateur. That 18 months of boxing at world elite level, I had 33 fights with 32 wins. And there’s not many men with that record at that level and I think that is what caught the eye of Top Rank and Golden Boy.
"In the end we came to a decision and the money was right, the deal was right, we couldn’t turn down the offer to go with Golden Boy Promotions and I am very grateful and happy that I have done that now.
"Amateur boxing has taken a bit of a dip recently, and with Billy Walsh leaving, I am very happy that I got out when I did."
Quigley embraced his new life in Los Angeles and quickly established himself as one to watch among the high-quality Golden Boy stable.
Golden Boy believed in their Irish import and Quigley was sent into the iconic MGM Grand for his opening fight in the paid ranks, performing on the undercard of Saul ‘Canelo’ Alavarez’s middleweight clash with Erislandy Lara.
Quigley’s second pro fight was again on the undercard of a high-profile encounter, this time at the StubHub Center in California as Kell Brook fought, and beat, Shawn Porter for the IBF welterweight world title.
A chance meeting with Brook and Dominic Ingle would prove poignant as Quigley marvelled at the relationship between boxer and trainer ahead of that world title encounter.
"We were all staying in the hotel and it was something very simple that planted the seed early on.
"I saw Dominic and Kell the evening before the fight, going for a walk down the street. Just the two of them together and there was something about it. I thought, ‘I like that, there is something good going on there’.
"I could sense the relationship, I could sense the bond and I could sense a great atmosphere.
"Because I was walking down the street as well, but I was on my own."
Two years later, Quigley had fought ten times as a professional, plying his trade in the relentless, white-hot atmosphere of the LA boxing scene, and was yet to be beaten.
Quigley’s unanimous decision win in a ten-rounder against the rated James De la Rosa, on the undercard of Canelo’s devastating victory over Amir Khan showed that ‘El Animal’ was ready to step up another level on the middleweight ladder.
Meanwhile, the 2016 Olympic Games were approaching and the one-time Rio hopeful admits that he did feel a tinge of regret that he would not get to experience the showpiece nor get to represent Ireland and have a chance to win a prestigious medal.
"When the Olympic Games came around there was a bit of regret in me. Representing your country at the Olympic Games is a great honour for anybody."
Of course, no one could have predicted the shenanigans that went on at the boxing competition in Rio as the Ireland team were mired in controversy from the start to the finish with failed drug tests, suspect scoring and explosive post-fight interviews.
Quigley’s decision to turn pro two years earlier now appeared prophetic.
"Don’t get me wrong, whenever the Olympic Games were over, I was like, jeez, I made the right decision there. Thank God I made that move.
"But of course, I was devastated for the lads and everyone in Rio because it was just a bit of a shambles, the whole thing, and it was very damaging to boxing, and Irish boxing especially."
While things were going great for Quigley inside the ring, the seeds of doubt were being sown in his mind about his personal happiness living in LA.
"The jigsaw wasn’t really coming together, the pieces weren’t fitting and it just wasn’t happening for me in Los Angeles. There’s nothing really that I could put my finger on, but for me, I’m just a normal fellow and I appreciate the normal things in life and that’s my family, my partner, home.
Don’t get me wrong, I was 23, 24 years of age out in LA and it was the things dreams are made of. Signing with Oscar De La Hoya, fighting in the MGM Grand on my pro debut. It was like constantly being on a drug or something.
"I loved every minute of it for the first year and a half but when everything settled down, there was something in my gut telling me, this isn’t for me. I just wasn’t happy there.
"I was living in Marina del Rey, a beautiful posh part of LA, I was living in a beautiful apartment looking over the marina, the beach was like my back garden and I was driving a great car.
"To be honest, I felt as if I was a multiple world champion ready to retire, I was living that kind of lifestyle and it just wasn’t working for me."
That Tapia fight arrived in March 2017 and by the end of that fateful night in the California desert, Quigley, who had fought on with a broken hand for eight rounds, while still securing a unanimous points victory, suddenly had a lot of time on his hands to make some life-altering decisions.
Many months recuperating from that freak accident in the ring, which saw Quigley break his hand and mangle his ligaments, the now 13-0 fighter was plotting his next move.
Quigley bade farewell to the bright lights of Los Angeles and headed back across the pond; not to the hills of Donegal, but to England and the renowned Ingle Gym in Sheffield to hook up with the aforementioned Kell Brook trainer, Dominic Ingle.
The Sheffield gym immediately felt like home.
"I knew I needed to get back to my grassroots, I needed to get back to what made me who I am and I couldn’t have got a better fit than the Ingle Gym.
"People are going to call me crazy and people have said it to me already, ‘you left Los Angeles to move to Sheffield’.
"But people don’t understand how much happier I am and how much better I think everything is. You have to walk in the footsteps of some people to understand exactly what they are going through.
"I was living a life in Los Angeles and I was living it, practically, on my own. And that’s what made it more depressing and sad and not so homely out there.
"It’s a great place to go and spend a couple of weeks but not when you are in the mindset of a young hungry fighter who is mad for success and mad for belts, and to be the best he can be."
But while Quigley struggled with his personal happiness throughout the latter days of his Californian life, the Donegal man admits that the learning curve proved priceless and he had no regrets about any aspect of the three-year Stateside sojourn.
"During my time in Los Angeles, I have never learnt as much, experienced as much, in life and in boxing, and I have never matured as much in all my life.
"I would not change a thing.
"Because now is the most important time in my career. Now I’m at the stage where everything needs to be at 100 per cent and everything has fallen into place perfectly.
"Even breaking my hand in the last fight, I can only look at that as a positive now. At the time, of course, it was the worst thing that ever happened.
"But it was one of the best things to ever happen to me in my life, because it gave me the time off, it learned me a lesson to show me how vulnerable this sport is.
"I’m 26 years of age. And between now and 32 is my time to really kick on, to really show now who I am, what I am and what I plan to do.
"I’m boxing since I was ten years old so I have 16 years of my apprenticeship done and now is the time to go out and claim the rewards and everything is falling into place perfectly."
A young animal from the get go 🦁 #YoungChamp #SkinAndBones #9CountiesChampion #3/4LengthShorts 🤣 @GoldenBoyBoxing @Everlast_ pic.twitter.com/NMEMES9Tkd
— Jason Quigley (@jay_quigley) February 9, 2018
Quigley also sees the move as a chance to return to his former style of boxing, instead of the explosive, power punching, audience pleasing approach, which earned the Donegal man the nickname ‘El Animal’ in his LA gym.
"I was a great technical fighter as an amateur and I found that I got a bit brainwashed when I got to Los Angeles with all that Mexican style fighting, and that you had to please the crown and you had to knock people out.
"Yes I found out that I have power in my hands and I can hit and knock people out.
"But that’s not who I am. I’m a boxer. I’m a technical fighter.
"I don’t need to go in and try to knock everyone out, because this is a tough sport and you have to look after yourself. You have to do what you have to do to get the win and the easier you can do that, the fresher you will be for your next fight, the better you will look, the more confidence you will get."
New trainer Dominic Ingle, of course, is the son of Brendan, who famously trained Prince Naseem Hamed to a world title, as well as looking after many other world class fighters including Herol Graham and current commentator Johnny Nelson, who had, years previous, acted as a mentor to Quigley as part of the Sky Sports programme.
And Quigley has immediately found himself in a happy place, whether through chatting about all things Ireland with Ringsend native Ingle Snr, or spending time within a boxing collective, something that the Donegal man has not experienced since his amateur days.
"The way the gym works, it’s like I’m back in my amateur days. We all train together, we all mix together, go to each others’ fights and go to camp together. And I think that is one of the key things to a successful gym.
"It’s all about the relationships between everybody and working together, and the likes of Kell, Billy Joe, Kid Galahad, they have all welcomed me in with open arms and I feel like I have been a part of the camp for years and not just a few months.
"Brendan [Ingle] is in the gym all the time and I am always going over to him. I will play a load of Dubliners songs on the stereo and talk about Ireland. Dominic plays the guitar when we are away in camp, playing Whiskey in the Jar and stuff and it’s great.
"And these are the kind of things I am so grateful for because I never had this in LA, it was all Mexican music, American music and it did nothing for me. But over in Sheffield it’s like a home away from home."
Happiness 🔑 to Success ,
— Jason Quigley (@jay_quigley) February 11, 2018
💥CAMP LIFE 💥 working hard and enjoying every minute of it , does this look like a good team up or what 😉🥊 @dominicingle @GoldenBoyBoxing @Everlast_ #Boxing #CampLife #Happiness pic.twitter.com/IEqjhKxlp7
Quigley now returns for fight number 14 on Saturday night at the Marina Bay SportsPlex to take on Daniel Rosario in an eight-round comeback fight on the Murphys Boxing card in Boston, which also sees Mayo’s Ray Moylette in action.
After a full year out of the game, Quigley will need this and perhaps one or two more fights to bring him back to the middleweight contenders, but for the 26-year-old Irishman, he is not looking beyond this fight.
"I’ve had a great 12-13 weeks training camp for this fight.
"It all started out in Furerteventura where we had our first get-together and it was actually part of the Kell Brook camp for his fight with Siarhei Rabchankaso, so what better way to get into the mix than sparring and working with one of the best fighters in the world and one of the best trainers in the world.
"Every fight is another step closer to a world title fight. I’ve been out for a year but I want to get back in there with a good tough operator. There’s no hanging about, I’m here and I mean business.
"Daniel Rosario will come to fight. He can make a name for himself off me. Ten of his eleven wins, he has knocked people out so he is a bit of a puncher. He is tough and hard and will come forward, but at the end of the day this is about me and this is about me on my path to become world champion."
Of course, the middleweight division is on fire at the moment as the second meeting of Gennady Golovkin and Canelo is about to take place, while others like Daniel Jacobs and Billy Joe Saunders, not to mention Cork’s own Spike O’Sullivan, will all be potential future opponents.
"I’m not going to be fighting for the world title in my next fight. It is going to be five or six fights down the line and who says that these guys are going to be champion by the time my chance comes around.
"I just concentrate on my next opponent and as long as my next fight is a stepping stone to get to world level and become a world champion, that’s all I care about.
"So whenever my time comes, whoever the champion is then, that’s the man I want."
