Jason Quigley believes there are parallels between his next fight and the one that first left him hooked on the sport.
The current fringe middleweight contender was just shy of ten years of age when Marco Antonio Barrera upset then-unbeaten featherweight king Naseem Hamed in April 2001. The twelve-round win helped not only Barrera return to past glory but served as a springboard for what would become a Hall of Fame career.
Nobody will ever mistake Quigley for Barrera, nor has Edgar Berlanga come close to matching the achievements of Hamed, who is also enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Still, the visiting 32-year-old Irishman from Ballybofey sees this weekend’s super middleweight showdown as the chance to relaunch all the dreams he set out for himself when he first took up the sport.
“The dream for me in boxing was to become world champion. That was when Marco Antonio Barrera beat Naseem Hamed,” Quigley noted during the most recent installment of Matchroom Boxing’s Behind Closed Doors pre-fight documentary series. “I remember staying up all hours at an age. There was something about Barrera that drew me in. For the first time in my life, I got goosebumps.
“Edgar Berlanga, yeah he’s out there and flashy . He likes the cameras. I think I saw him wearing sunglasses indoors one time. He needs a slap for that alone.”
Quigley (20-2, 14KOs) is a longshot underdog to prevail versus Brooklyn’s Berlanga (20-0, 16KOs) in their super middleweight bout this Saturday on DAZN from Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater in New York City. He enters the bout two fights removed from a stunning second-round knockout defeat to then-WBO middleweight titlist Demetrius Andrade in November 2019 at SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire.
His lone title bid was followed by a confidence-restoring ten-round decision win this past April 1 in Dublin, Ireland. The win came one week before Quigley was confirmed as the opponent for Barrera, who makes his Matchroom Boxing debut and also fights for the first time in a little more than a year.
Berlanga has said all the right things and even returned to old trainer Marc Farrait as he has left no stone unturned for what he treats as the biggest risk of his still young career.
Quigley views the Brooklyn-based Puerto Rican boxer as arrogant and more flash than substance, similar to the criticism—justified or otherwise—that surrounded Hamed’s career. He prefers the no-nonsense approach employed by his first boxing hero.
“Whenever Barrera got in the ring, it was time to say ‘Who’s your daddy,’” stated Quigley. “I’m ready to rock and roll.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox