Jason ‘El Animal’ Quigley. Irelands next world champion?

Jason getting his hand raised after his knock out win over Michael Faulk. Photo courtesy of Sheer Sports Management.

Ireland down through the years has always punched above its weight when it came to the level of success it has enjoyed at Amateur, Olympic and Professional level Boxing. The sport has produced Irish sporting heroes such as Steve Collins, Wayne McCullough, Bernard Dunne, Katie Taylor and our most recent world champion Belfast man Michael Conlon.

Looking to add his name onto that prestigious list of world champions is a man from Ballybofey, Co. Donegal. Jason ‘El Animal’ Quigley. Jason is a twenty four year old middleweight boxer who won the European Amateur Championships in the summer of 2013 and then went on to claim silver at that years World Championships in Kazakhstan. Following a whirlwind 2013, Jason went on to turn professional in 2014 and signed with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. I spoke with Jason to discuss his amateur career, his life since turning professional, living away from home and his plans for his future in Golden Boy.

Photo courtesy of Sheer Sports Management.

On November 20^th, Jason will step into the ring for the 9^th time as a professional fighter at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Jason has won all eight of his professional bouts with all of those victories coming by knockout. Speaking on his professional career to date and the change from amateur, Jason tells me “ I am settling in really nice, there’s a big change coming from amateur, obviously the last world championship there was no headgear, but the vest, the hand wrapping before fights, weigh ins everyday before a fight, to be honest I am really settling in, I am loving every minute of it, I couldn’t ask for anything better”. On his eight knockouts, I asked Jason was that his goal to put away all his opponents in such style to try make a name for himself, “I don’t personally have a plan, I am not looking past November 20^th, every fight I have gone into I haven’t looked past, my goal is to be the best out there, to be the champion of the world and to be undefeated, that’s my end goal. Right now my goal is to take out whoever is put in front of me, whoever is put in front of me now is there to stop my dreams and I am not going to let any man step into the ring and take anything away from me”

Jason last fought in August against Michael Faulk, a fight he finished at the end of the second round when Faulk’s corner threw in the towel after Jason landed a succession of hard blows which dropped Faulk several times prior to that point. Before the Faulk fight, Jason fought on July 11^th against Tom Howard. July 11^th was also the same night that Conor McGregor fought Chad Mendes at UFC 189. Last year McGregor posted a photo on his social media accounts with Jason in LA in which he described Jason as the future World champion. Jason was also in Boston in January this year ahead of Conor’s bout with Dennis Siver at the TD Garden. On fighting on the same night as Conor at UFC 189 Jason tells me “I have a hell of a lot of fans, especially in Donegal, there was a lot of people rooting for me, there were a lot of people who said ‘oh McGregor is on tonight’, and there were a lot of comments that said don’t forget Quigley is on tonight, it was actually great in a way, cause a lot of people doubled it up as Quigley and McGregor is fighting, in a way it was good for both of us representing our country, it was a nice thing to share with Conor.”

Since his move to professional boxing, Jason has been based in Los Angeles, California, a massive change in scenery in from the rural settings of Ballybofey, Co. Donegal. I wanted to know how Jason felt about leaving home to pursue his dream. He tells me “If you think that going from Dublin to Los Angeles, is a big change, imagine what Donegal is like, it’s a massive change cultural wise, weather wise, just people wise, how people are, it’s a massive massive change, but at the same time, it is a massive massive learning curve, stuff you can’t learn in school like, I had great teachers, a great time in school but school can never educate you the way travelling does, I am absolutely blessed to have gotten these opportunities, its something that I have always wanted, to be out here in LA doing what I love to do, getting paid to lie in the sun” On the other hand, despite being living the dream there is the other side of the fairytale “of course its difficult, its hard being away from home for so long from your parents, to be honest its mainly the comfort of your surroundings, being able to walk down to the local shop or getting a takeaway, the simple things like that are the things that you miss, the warm weather, its amazing but to be honest, sometimes I miss the rain and having the big fire on, those things that are born into Irish people”

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In boxing, moving from amateur to professional is a massive step in terms of training and demands on the human body. Jason listed through some of the changes he has had to undergo. “It’s a different business, it’s a different lifestyle, it takes times to get used to the training as a professional, it is sore on the body at the start, you are not just training for three rounds, you are training for six, eight, ten rounds, everything gets more intense, that’s just the way it is, you need to adapt to that which is what I have been doing”

Photo courtesy of Sheer Sports Management.

As a former prominent amateur boxer, I asked Jason was he still keeping in touch with what was happening on the amateur scene in Ireland now that he is living so far away. “To be honest I have kind of lost track of the underage boxing which is sad for me because I love to hear about the young kids coming up, but the main way for me to keep in touch with everything is through twitter, and I get all the press on twitter too, news on the guys such as Michael Conlon and Paddy Barnes, I am still good friends with them, I stay in touch and keep an eye to make sure they are still taking back gold medals.” On the Billy Walsh scandal that recently rocked the boxing scene in Ireland, Jason believes that “Billy must not have been getting treated right, I have known Billy for a long time, we were together on a lot of trips and I have seen the passion in his eyes and the pride he gets from helping his country. I know Billy didn’t just say ‘Fuck this lets get out of here’, there had to have been reasons, Billy has to look after himself and the offer USA Boxing gave him with the pension, health insurance, things that have to be taken care off.” On the repercussions for Irish Boxing as a result of Billy’s departure Jason doesn’t think it will affect the more experienced boxers, but in the long term it will have an affect on the up and coming amateur boxers in Ireland.

Jason Quigley with legendary boxer Roberto Duran and the president of the WBC Mauricio Sulaiman in New York before the Golovkin – Lemieux fight. Photo courtesy of Sheer Sports Management.

Jason recently attended the Golovkin vs. Lemieux Title unification fight in Madison Square Garden in New York. Golovkin is now the WBA, WBC and IBF Middleweight champion. In his own words, Golovkin is the man who has what he wants, on a potential future bout with Golovkin Jason explains “Right now I am keeping an eye on these guys because they have what I want, I want to see what they do, what they do different, their weaknesses so when my time comes I will be 100% ready to take care of business.” As Jason said, he isn’t looking past his bout on November 20^th, “if you are talking to me this time next year I would love to be calling Golovkin out, to be honest my goal for next year is for Golovkin to have his eye on me and to know that I am coming up, and it might not even be Golovkin.” At the Golovkin fight, Jason was even rubbing shoulders with Rap superstar Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson. 50 Cent has a started a new clothes range, mainly underwear and skin tight, clothing and Jason was picked as one of the guys that he is giving gear to.

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From speaking to Jason, it is very clear that he is someone who knows what they want from their career and has the plan in place to do it. His next step on the ladder is on November 20th at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. An opponent is yet to be named for El Animal.

The fight will be available to watch in Ireland for free on http://www.ringtvlive.com/

Check Jason out on Twitter @Jay_Quigley. On Instagram @JayQuigley1

Merchandise available here. www.McElhinneys.com

Massive shout out to Rachel Charles at Sheer Sports Management for organising this interview. http://www.sheersportsmgmt.com/

The Human Body Vs Mixed Martial Arts. Part 1 of 3.

The Fighting Irish at the UFC 189 World Press Tour in Dublin, Ireland.

Over the past few years I have become obsessed with MMA, to the point where I have crossed the line from observer to participant and taken a few punches to the face, albeit only a few times in Malahide MMA. I enjoy staying up on a Saturday night to all hours to watch the fights and then the press conference after. There is however one aspect of the sport I don’t enjoy and it is the danger fighters put themselves into in order to compete at the top.

Now I am not going to be the first or the last to point out that Mixed Martial Arts is a dangerous sport, any contact sport is. But being a contact sport is not the main reason as to why it is can be dangerous. It is what fighters are doing to themselves in order to compete and in some cases what they are forced to do in order to earn a living for themselves. I wanted to look a little deeper into something that has been on my mind for a little while. I wanted to look at why fighters put themselves at unnecessary risks in order to compete at the top and what the results of those risks could be. These risks include fighting injured, too often, and also poor preparation for fights including dangerous weight cutting. In this part I will look at how carrying injuries into a fight can be fatal to your fighting career

The UFC is considered the Premier League of the Mixed Martial Arts World. Most fighters looking to make a living from fighting full time will usually aim to make it into the UFC. When they get there the average fighter will fight anywhere between three to four fights in a year and earn on average (based on disclosed pay from UFC 191 on September 5th) $61,500 per fight.*(Source :Bloody Elbow).

Although this does seem like quite a healthy salary, especially for one nights work, that average figure is boosted by fighters such as Anthony Johnson, Frank Mir and Andrei Arlovski who each earned a disclosed amount of at least $200,000. On the other end of the scale there is UFC Newcomer Nazareno Malegarie who only received $10,000 dollars for his fight pass prelim opener at UFC 191. Prelim headliner, Paul Felder only earned a disclosed $18,000 dollars for his fight against Ross Pearson. You and I would look at $18,000 or even $10,000 dollars as not bad for a single nights work, but thats not true unfortunately. It is not just a days work, it is usually the result of maybe six to seven weeks of hard training if not more, you would have your coaches and corner men who need to be paid out of that $10k, perhaps a home mortgage, a car repayment and childcare costs. It all adds up and if you get injured, No Bueno.

If you are only earning a disclosed amount of around $10-15k per fight, chances are you are going to have to fight several times in a year in order to make a decent living for yourself. If you are fit and healthy and not cutting too much weight then usually thats not a problem for most. However we do not live in an ideal world and fighters might be unwilling to disclose injuries that happen in training and will go into a fight with their bodies not at a 100%.

In my second ever MMA class, I broke my baby toe rolling on the mats practising guard defence. A silly injury but one that happened easily enough and kept me off the mats for nearly six weeks. Now for me, the broken toe was an inconvenience, I wrapped it up, moaned about it for a week or five and let it recover. Life went on, as a banker I don’t depend on my toe to earn money to pay my bills.

Fighters on the other hand do. I can only imagine if guys are training for four or five fights a year in seven or eight week camps at a time, that the chances are that they are going to pick up small little injuries along the way like my broken toe. Injuries that they will probably carry into the fight as they can’t afford to let it stop them. Conor McGregor went into his UFC 178 fight with Dustin Poirier last September with torn ligaments in his thumb, and also went into his UFC 189 bout with Chad Mendes with a knee injury. Conor was very lucky that his fight with Poirier didn’t go longer than ninety seconds and that the torn ligaments were in his right hand, not his leading left hand. He was also lucky that he fought Chad Mendes and his wrestling instead of Jose Aldo with his heavy leg kicks at UFC 189. Had Aldo been landing his infamous leg kicks on Conor’s injured knee that he tore his ACL in, it is unclear how long he would be out of action for now.

Jose Aldo, Dana White & Conor McGregor

Luck may not always be on Conor’s side, if he continues to go into fights carrying injuries, he may end up like former bantamweight champion Dominic Cruz, sidelined for the prime of his career whilst the hype train rolls on. Now Conor’s larger than life personality will see that he will never be short of money but the same can’t be said for every fighter on the UFC roster. Three years on the sideline equals game over for most fighters.

Fighters therefore won’t make injuries public before a fight if they do intend to fight through it, otherwise the athletic commission may not sanction the fight resulting in a total loss of income for both you and your opponent, or your opponent will know to focus on the part of your body that is injured if the fight does still manage to go ahead. Neither situation is ideal, especially if you are like UFC newcomer Nazareno Malegarie and only earning $10K for a couple of months work. If he were to get injured, how would he pay his training staff, his corner men and any other expenses a fighter may have in the two month lead up to a fight. A quick return would be his only option assuming the UFC were even willing to give a newcomer another chance.

For this series, I got a little input from George Lockhart. To those who don’t know him, George is a nutritionist and trainer who has helped the likes of UFC welterweight title challenger Rory McDonald, UFC bantamweight contender Raphael Assuncao and will be working with Invicta FC featherweight champion Cris Cyborg in her bid to reach 135lb’s in order to challenge Ronda Rousey for the UFC women’s bantamweight championship.

Cris Cyborg

As a former fighter himself, a respected trainer and highly sought after nutritionist, very few people understand how the human body works quite like George does. I asked George what he thought about how fighters prepare and if their preparations could have serious repercussions. His response was that “Many guys don’t realise that just because you can get away with things now doesn’t mean you can get away with them when you’re older. Not recovering correctly over the course of a career has life long effects.” Fighters are doing a lot of long term harm to their bodies in return for a short term reward.

There are a few things that need to change in the MMA world to stop fighters putting themselves at unnecessary risk. Ideally fighter compensation needs to increase so that fighters don’t need to fight as often as possible in order to pull in a decent salary. They should be guaranteed a certain amount of income if they or their opponent is unable to make a fight as a result of genuine injury. Until this is done, fighters will continue to take fights with underlying injuries just so they can provide a better life for themselves in the short run whilst also doing untold damage to their bodies that may not become apparent until these fighters reach the end of their careers or even some years after.

George Lockhart on the MMA Hour.

Follow me on Twitter @MMA_ANDY

UFC Fight Night Saskatoon. Max Holloway vs Charles Oliveira. Why you should be excited!

The UFC visits Saskatoon, in the Saskatchewan province of Canada this Sunday evening with a headline bout scheduled to take place between Hawaiian Featherweight star Max ‘Blessed’ Holloway (13-3) and Brazilian submission artist Charles ‘Do Bronx” Oliveira (20-4, 1NC).

It has been a very busy couple of months for the UFC and its fans. Following Ronda Rousey mania three weeks ago at UFC 190, the Conor McGregor show at UFC 189 three weeks before that, and all the scandal in between ranging from Jacob ‘Stitch’ Duran, the legendary UFC cutman being fired over alleged comments made to Bloody Elbow about the financial impact caused to him by the Reebok deal, and the train wreck of an appearance by former Middleweight champion and UFC legend Anderson Silva at his Nevada State Athletic Commission hearing over his doping for the Nick Diaz fight in January at UFC 183.

With all the above going on, it is no surprise that this Sundays fight card has for want of a better phrase, flown under the radar. Not helped of course by the lack of high profile fighters on the card which is to be expected following a number of stacked PPV cards. For this reason the excitement and buzz around this weekends card is truly lacking. Hopefully this little article will be able to convince you to tune in, and like me, be looking for an excuse on Monday morning as to why you are so so tired.

Max Holloway

First off lets look at the main event. Max ‘Blessed’ Holloway has been on a tear through the division. His name will be familiar to people this side of the pond as the only man to bring Conor McGregor the distance at UFC Boston in August 2013. Since then, Holloway has won six fights in a row including three TKO’S, two submissions and one unanimous decision. He has also won two performance of the night bonuses and one knockout of the night bonus in that time. His last victory was a one sided beat down of Featherweight No.6 ranked, Cub Swanson, a fight he won performance of the night for. Max is also only twenty three years old, a couple of years before he reaches his physical prime, so a fighter with a resume as impressive as his at his age is a must see. Especially when the best is still yet to come.

Charles Oliveira

His opponent, Charles Oliveira is himself on a four fight win streak since his fight of the night loss to Frankie Edgar at UFC 162 in July 2013. He will be coming into this fight full of confidence following a performance of the night win against Nik Lentz at UFC Fight night Goiania in May this year. A fight which also won fight of the night. Performance bonuses are something which Oliveira has become accustomed to as he has won nine such awards in his twelve fights with the UFC. Of his twelve fights, only two have actually gone the distance.

With eight UFC wins in total, seven of them coming from submissions, the canvas is most likely where Oliveira will be looking for this fight to go to. Holloway will be probably looking to keep the fight on the feet, he proved how cynical a striker he is when he finished Akira Corasanni in brutal fashion in Stockholm last October, and also in how he dismantled Cub Swanson on the feet in New Jersey in April before submitting him in the third round.

This will be a very difficult fight to call but given both of their records, the difference in fighting styles and the massive opportunity to move into title contention in what is now the hottest division in the UFC. Both men should be fired up to make a huge statement. Should Holloway continue his impressive streak this Sunday, it is safe to say that a rematch with Conor McGregor may soon be on the cards for the young Hawaiian. Nobody who is asking for a rematch against Conor would deserve it more.

Prediction. Holloway by TKO.

UFC Saskatoon Fight Pass Prelims begins 11pm on Sunday Irish Time. Prelims start at Midnight on Sunday on BT Sport 2 and the Main Card begins at 2am on Monday morning on BT Sport 2.