By Thomas Gerbasi
March 23, 2017 should have been the best night of Jason Quigley’s career. He scored a near-shutout win over popular brawler Glen Tapia to lift his pro record to 13-0, and he did it in an ESPN-televised main event.
But almost as soon as the decision was read, the news hit that in the process of winning, he broke his right hand. There would be no striking while the iron was hot and getting another big name in another televised fight, only a trip to the sidelines to recover from the surgery to fix his damaged mitt.
So it wasn’t the best night of Quigley’s career anymore. Or was it? Just ask the eternally optimistic Irishman about it, and he’ll put quite a different spin on that night in Indio and its aftermath.
“To be honest, when I hurt my hand and I had to take the time off for the surgery, recovery and rehab, of course I was thinking this was such a terrible thing,” he said. “But, in all fairness, I can’t look at that in a negative way whatsoever. All I do is look at it in a great, positive way, because it gave me the chance to make the change and make the moves that I probably would not have been able to do if I would have won that last fight inside the distance, which I think I would have done if I hadn’t broke my hand. I think I would have been tied into a bigger fight right away and ready to rock and roll and wouldn’t have had the time to make those necessary changes to make my career better. And these are the changes that are going to pay dividends when it becomes time to fight for a world title and being world champion.”
Changes? Well, the big one was that Quigley moved from his previous base of operations in Los Angeles back to Europe. Not to his home of Donegal, but to Sheffield, England. The reason he wound up in that locale was due to the other change, as he is now working with Dominic Ingle and not Manny Robles. The reason for the major switch of home and coach? It’s a pretty simple explanation.
“I’m just a normal guy and my roots and what my heart was longing for just brought me back,” he said. “LA is a great place and everything like that, don’t get me wrong, but it just wasn’t fitting the bill for me and I needed the change.”
And unlike many upheavals like this that can especially shake up a fighter approaching his prime, Quigley sounds as settled in his new situation as he can be.
“It wasn’t difficult at all,” he said. “It just felt like I came home. Everything just fell into place, and the way I’m kind of describing it is that when I was in LA, I was trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together and the pieces just weren’t fitting and it didn’t match. And as soon as I came over here to Sheffield and closer to home, the jigsaw put itself together and it’s a beautiful picture.”
Of course, Ingle is known these days for his work with the likes of Kell Brook and Billy Joe Saunders, but who can forget the most famous fighter to emerge from that gym under the tutelage of Ingle’s father, Brendan: Prince Naseem Hamed. So are we about to see a flip over the top rope from Quigley when he returns to the ring this Saturday for a bout in Quincy, Massachusetts against Daniel Rosario Cruz?
“You never know,” he laughs. “But that’s the great thing about Dominic. He understands the type of fighter that I am, and I think everybody understood there will never be another Prince Naseem Hamed. With all the moves that he’d done, he was a very individual person and we’ll not get anybody the exact same as him again. But Dominic knows what I’m good at, what to work on with me, and he knows what to keep working on to keep me a top athlete and a top technical fighter and using my speed, footwork and everything like that.”
Quigley’s return is an anticipated one, because the 26-year-old appeared to be on the verge of a breakthrough in the middleweight division before his hand ended up having other plans. But a year later, he’s back and ready to make his mark again. Yeah, it’s a fresh start, but it’s also a case of him picking up where he left off.
“It’s a continuation from where I left off in my career and it’s a fresh start with the new coach and the new setup,” he said. “To be honest, I’m feeling great, I’m excited, I’m back doing what I love to do and I can’t give words to describe it. 2018 is the year that I come on to the scene and start making a lot of noise and start climbing my way to the very top of the ladder and become a world champion.”
But what about that flip?
“Maybe I’ll do the jump and land on my trainer’s shoulders.” (Laughs)