By Jim Dower: Unbeaten middleweight prospect Jason “El Animal” Quigley (13-0, 10 KOs) was forced to battle hard to defeat Glen Tapia (23-4, 5 KOs) by an unimpressive 10 round unanimous decision on Thursday night in a fight televised by ESPN at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California. The final judges’ scores were 100-90, 99-91 and 98-92.
(Photo Credit: Tom Hogan/Golden Boy Promotions)
Boxing News 24 had Quigley winning 7 rounds to 3. The fight was definitely not as one-sided as the scores from the judges. Those scores gave Tapia no credit for him coming on in rounds 4 and landing a lot of heavy shots. Quigley, 25, was forced to get on his bike to box Tapia. Quigley did not look all that great moving and jabbing, because Tapia was able to land a lot of big shots when he would come forward to land some big punches.
Tapia suffered a bloody nose and a cut on the side of his right eye. The cut didn’t effect Tapia’s ability to attack Quigley, as he was going after him the entire fight. Quigley had a bad bruise under his left eye. The left side of Quigley’s face was badly swollen from the heavy blows that Tapia was landing.
Quigley started out quickly in throwing a lot of punches in the first three rounds. It looked like Quigley was on his way to get a knockout. In round 4, Tapia began to go after Quigley in landing some big shots to the head and the body. The crowd really got into in cheering Tapia with big shots. Quigley lost his confidence completely and started to look like he was coming unglued.
Tapia fought well in rounds in rounds 5 and 6 in connecting with some big power shots to the head of Quigley.
Quigley started focusing on his boxing in in round 7, and staying on the outside to jab and pot shot. However, Tapia was still able to close the distance to land some big shots to the head.
Tapia started to wear down in round 8, as he wasn’t able to close the distance often enough to land his big power shots. Quigley stood on the outside throwing his jabs and occasional pot shots. Quigley wasn’t landing a lot of big shots.
After the 8th round, the referee checked in on Tapia letting him know that he had to start throwing more shots otherwise he was going to stop the fight. It made little sense because the fight was not one-sided. Tapia was still very competitive.
In rounds 9 and 10, Tapia pressed the attack and landed some nice shots occasionally. Quigley got the better of Tapia, but he still looked sloppy.
All in all, Quigley looked very flawed and not like a fighter that is going to go far in the middleweight division. Unless we see a great deal of improvement in Quigley’s game, he’s not going to go far at 160. Quigley is too easy to hit, and he lacks the power and the hand speed to rise far in the division. If this had been someone like David Lemieux that Quigley was facing tonight, he likely would have been knocked out.
Golden Boy is going to need to think what their end game is for Quigley. If they want him to pick up trinket titles that few boxing fans have ever heard of, I think he’s capable of doing that. But if they feel he’s got the potential to win a world title, I see that as a waste of time. Quigley doesn’t appear to have the talent needed for him to win a world title, even if he waits out Gennady Golovkin until he ages and retires. There are too many arguably more talented fighters in the middleweight division than Quigley in my estimation.