Middleweight Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan (26-2, 18 KOs) picked up his fourth consecutive win on Saturday night in stopping an over-matched Nick Quigley (15-3, 3 KOs) in the 4th round in a fight televised on ESPN Deportes from the House of Blues in Boston, Massachusetts.
The O’Sullivan-Quigley fight card tonight was presented by Golden Boy Boxing via ESPN.
The 33-year-old O’Sullivan hammered Quigley at will in round 4 until referee Arthur Merchant Jr. stepped in and halted the fight. The official time of the stoppage was at 1:23 of round 4. O’Sullivan was nailing he 29-year-old Quigley with big uppercuts in the 4th. O’Sullivan couldn’t miss with his shots. He busted up the nose of Quigley, and he really worked him over until the referee did the right thing and stopped the mismatch.
O’Sullivan was stopped in the 7th round by Chris Eubank Jr. on December 12, 2015. O’Sullivan since then had beaten Jaime Barboza, Ronald Montes, Chauncey Fields and Quigley. None of them are talented fighters in the middleweight division. O’Sullivan needs to step it up and start fighting a better class of opponents because it’s not going to help him being up on weaker opposition like Quigley. 3 of O’Sullivan’s last 4 fights have come by knockout. He usually knocks guys out. O’Sullivan’s punching power is extraordinary.
The reason why O’Sullivan isn’t highly rated is because he comes unglued when he fights the better middleweights in the division. When O’Sullivan stepped up against Chris Eubank Jr. and Billy Joe Saunders, he was easily beaten. O’Sullivan is in his element against guys like Quigley. If O’Sullivan could put it altogether as a fighter, he could be a top middleweight in the division, as he’s got the punching power to make it thrilling against anyone.
“This is my seventh time fighting in Boston and it has truly turned into my second home,” said O’Sullivan after the fight. “I really appreciate the opportunity. I was surprised by Quigley’s power as he was very strong and delivered clean shots. It was a fight full of action. Quigley and I traded a lot of shots and that’s the only I could take the victory,” aid O’Sullivan.
In round 1, O’Sullivan came out fast, hitting Quigley with big left hooks and uppercuts. O’Sullivan landed a scorching right hand to the head of Quigley. O’Sullivan had Quigley trapped against the ropes and was pelting him with tremendous shots to the head. Quigley fired back some nice punches of his own, but they were ignored entirely by O’Sullivan, who continued to fire back hard punches. O’Sullivan hurt Quigley with a huge uppercut to the head. Somehow Quigley stayed on his feet. Quigley tried to get off the ropes, but O’Sullivan slammed into him, driving him back to the ropes to continue to pummel him. Quigley landed some fast combinations, but they had nothing on them. The shots lacked power to get O’Sullivan to back off. Quigley looked incredibly weak with whatever he threw at O’Sullivan. You can argue this was a 10-8 round, because Quigley took a ferocious beating from O’Sullivan. Quigley was cut in the round, and exhausted by the time he went back to his corner. O’Sullivan was just way too good and way too powerful for him. Quigley was exhausted from just trying to survive the heavy onslaught from O’Sullivan. It was a real ordeal for Quigley to absorb the beating in that round.
In round 2, O’Sullivan greeted Quigley immediately with a big right hand to the head. Quigley fired back with hooks in connecting with some nice combinations. O’Sullivan ignored them and landed a monstrous left hook. The difference between the power of the two fighters was incredible. Quigley had seemingly nothing on his shots compared to O’Sullivan. A short time later, O’Sullivan trapped Quigley against the ropes. Quigley was able to escape the ropes. However, O’Sullivan forced him back and began slamming right hands down the pike. Quigley leaned against the ropes, trying to lean back far enough so he wouldn’t get hit. It was no use. O’Sullivan was still able to land his big power shots no matter how much Quigley leaned. O’Sullivan focused on landing body shots when Quigley was leaning back, and the British fighter didn’t like that at all. As the round was nearing the end, Quigley landed a hard uppercut. However, O’Sullivan was willing to take shots from Quigley in order to nail him back with his own big punches, which were far more powerful. The boxing fans at ringside loved the action, even though it was terribly one-sided. The fans liked watching Quigley fight hard for survival and get the worst of it. The fight wasn’t competitive but it was still interesting to watch O’Sullivan try and demolish Quigley.
O’Sullivan just keeps bearing down on him, landing loud body blows. Nice uppercut by Quigley twisting into O’Sullivan from a familiar position, back to the ropes. O’Sullivan eats a right hand to wind in his own powerful air-dragging one up top. Light body shots from Quigley. O’Sullivan is ripping Quigley with hard hooking rights on the jaw and staggering him. Light body flurries by Quigley and hooks up top doing nothing to slow O’Sullivan. Quigley’s light punches weren’t nearly powerful enough to make O’Sullivan even think about slowing down.
It was clear from watching Quigley get worked over in the 2nd round that the fight was going to be stopped soon. If wasn’t the referee that would stop it, then surely Quigley’s corner would do the right thing to save him from absorbing needless punishment in an unwinnable fight.
In round 3, O’Sullivan walked Quigley down, hitting him with uppercuts to the jaw. Quigley continued to throw his weak left-fight combinations to the head of O’Sullivan. Quigley walked into a big left hook from O’Sullivan that clearly hurt him. O’Sullivan then got Quigley against the ropes and hurt him with big right hands. Quigley fired back helplessly with his weak combinations to try and get O’Sullivan off of him, but it wouldn’t work. It was a surprise that Quigley was able to stay on his feet during the round because he was taking a real shellacking from O’Sullivan in the round. This was another round where you can argue that the judges should have scored it a 10-8 round.
In the 4th round, O’Sullivan came out fast throwing uppercuts to the head of Quigley. It was an uppercut clinic from O’Sullivan during the round. Quigley would occasionally throw some shoeshine combinations to try and get O’Sullivan to back off, which failed to work. Towards the end of the round, O’Sullivan busted Quigley’s nose with a big shot. The referee finally decided he’d seen enough and he stepped in and halted the slaughter.
It was a good win by O’Sullivan against a bad opponent. I’d like to see what O’Sullivan could do against a contender like Tureano Johnson or Sergiy Derevyanchenko. If O’Sullivan can hang with those guys, then maybe he’s got the talent to give the likes of Gennady Golovkin and Billy Joe Saunders problems.