Undefeated middleweight prospect Jason Quigley (13-0, 10 KOs) revealed the details of a tense encounter with ESPN broadcast analyst and veteran trainer Teddy Atlas.

During a recent episode of The Irish Boxing Show, Quigley revealed the details of his run-in with Atlas, which took place backstage at last Saturday's big card at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which featured the Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

 

Quigley severely broke his hand in the second round of that fight. The injury affected him for the remainder of the contest and required surgery. He felt a need to speak to Atlas, face to face, about the trainer's critical comments before a televised audience.

"I had a talk with him over the weekend in Las Vegas. I could see him staring at me out of the corner of his eye. I think he was waiting for me to come up to him and be very aggressive or whatever. But I went up to him and I go, 'Teddy, I don't know if you remember me but you commentated on my last fight in Fantasy Springs," Quigley said.

"And he's like, 'Ah, yes, Jason, how's it going? Of course I remember you.' I said: 'You gave me a lot of criticism in that last fight. I'm all about criticism - I love to hear what I'd be doing wrong, to learn from it. But do you know that I broke my hand in the second round, and that obviously changes the fight?' And he kept speaking and speaking and speaking, and he wasn't really speaking about anything at the start. But I'm saying, 'Look, Teddy, I'm just here to hear your opinion face-to-face. I don't want to hear it through tv or through anybody else. I want to hear it from you. What is your honest opinion on the fight?'

"And he says: 'Okay. Putting the injury aside...' [laughs] And I'm like, 'how can you put a broken hand aside?!? You know what I mean? In boxing, if you have two hands you're at 100%. If you have one hand that's 50%, like!' So he kind of went on - you know he likes to hear himself speak - so I just listened to him. I says, 'Okay, okay, okay. Put the injury aside, what's your honest take?'

"He says: 'Well, I think you panicked a little bit in the middle of the fight when you couldn't get Tapia out of there.' Like, I had loads of comebacks for him, but there was just no talking to him. He just wanted to keep hearing himself speak. He said: 'You definitely panicked in that fight. You nearly had Tapia gone and he came back strong, and you started to panic a little bit. You were thrown off your game.'

"And I was like, 'All right, Teddy. I broke my hand. I've eight rounds to go, it's a title fight, of course I'm going to panic a little bit! And of course the fight is going to sway, because I don't have my right hand to knock him out with.' It is what it is. Teddy gets paid to talk. But I've read through a few of the things he said, and I've taken away a few things that maybe I could work on in my game. I'm all ears. I'm still a prospect, I'm still an up-and-coming fighter. I'm like a sponge. I take everything in, and I move on."