Quigley: No man could stop me If I got that close to a World title again

JASON Quigley has it all ahead of him. He starts his professional journey on a massive Golden Boy Promoted, MGM hosted pay per view card on Saturday night. However, the popular 22 year old makes his paid debut with his last major amateur fight still very much on his mind.

Indeed, the middleweight has vowed to carry the memory of his last vested with him throughout his career and use it as motivational tool.

Quigley enters the paid ranks on the back of a stellar 2013 campaign highlighted by a gold medal at the European Championships in Minsk and a silver at the world championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

That World final reverse suffered at the gloves of Kazakhstan’s Zhanibek Alimkhanuly still rankles with the 22 year old Golden Boy- and speaking to Reuters yesterday Quigley was keen to point out that if he ever got in touching distance of a World title again he wouldn’t let the chance to grab a belt pass him by.

“To realise I was three rounds away from becoming a world champion is something that hurts me very much deep down,” he said. “The best thing I can do now is use that memory to drive me, give me incentive to become a world professional champion.
“I know if I ever get that close again to becoming a world champion, there’s no man that’s going to stop me from doing it.”

Quigley will be in big name company as he trades leather against American Howard Reece on the undercard on the eagerly anticipated Saul Alvarez and Erislandy Lara Mecixo v Cuba clash.

But it is the biggest of current names that is on the fighter, who has enjoyed a metoric rise over the last two years, lips ahead of his professional bow. Quigley is planing to a leaf out of Floyd Mayweather’s playbook as he starts his pro assault this weekend.

“Coming into the professional game, everybody thinks that you have to close up your defence and keep coming forward fighting, which I think isn’t correct if you look at the top fighters in the world.

“Just look at number one Mayweather. He’s an absolute genius with his boxing skills and his defensive technique is absolutely brilliant, so I try to idolise him.”