Jason Quigley Outpoints Glen Tapia in Golden Boy Promotions on ESPN Main Event

With a headlining slot on Friday’s Golden Boy Promotions on ESPN telecast, it seemed that Irish prospect Jason Quigley was going to have a quick, spectacular performance. Quigley took the fight right to fellow middleweight Glen Tapia and twice rocked the veteran badly in the opening round and continued his assault in the second. But just when it looked like the fight was going to end in brutal fashion, the tides turned.

Tapia, who has been in grueling wars with James Kirkland, Michel Soro and David Lemieux, was on his last legs as he was getting busted up every step of the way. But just when it appeared as though the New Jersey native was going to go, he dug deep and forced Quigley into an uncomfortable battle. Tapia (23-4, 15 KOs) began landing his right hand at will and while he was not buckling the Donegal native’s knees, he was winning rounds.

Quigley’s left cheek swelled up and his crisp combos from the first few rounds turned into single-punch attacks. To make matters worse for young Quigley, he played into his opponent’s hands and opted instead to fight Tapia’s fight. Though Quigley was still relatively in control of the bout for the most part, his lack of overall professional experience made him have a much more difficult time with Tapia, who had already been knocked out thrice. Quigley was exhausted by the time the final bell sounded and social media was in a borderline frenzy as to whether the battle would be a draw, though those notions seemed a bit of a stretch.

Still, Quigley (13-0, 10 KOs) was able to do just enough in each round down the stretch and he was awarded with a unanimous decision victory for his effort. While he clearly won the tussle, the three ringside judges turned in puzzling scores of 98-92, 99-91 and 100-90; the fight was much closer than the official scores indicated.

Randy Caballero remained undefeated with a solid 10-round performance against Jesus Ruiz in which he won a unanimous decision. After a torrid opening few frames, Caballero used his superior speed and movement to set the tone and coasted down the stretch. The fight was entertaining throughout but Caballero (24-0, 14 KOs) won via tallies of 96-94 (twice) and 97-93. Ruiz fell to 35-8-5 with 24 KOs.

2012 U.S. Olympian Marlen Esparza dominated winless Rachel Sazoff in the opening bout of the telecast. Esparza hit her adversary nearly whenever she wanted but she was unable to score a knockout in her pro debut. Instead, Esparza settled for a lopsided unanimous nod with scores of 40-36 across the board. Sazoff, who is 1-7 as a pro MMA fighter, fell to 0-3 as a pro boxer.