Nathan Quarless can’t wait to announce himself this weekend.
Quarless (12-0) has been waiting for an opportunity since outboxing Steve Collins Jr in a fifty-fifty fight two years ago. The unbeaten 28 year old cruiserweight gets the perfect chance to change the trajectory of his career when he faces hot prospect Viddal Riley (9-0, 6 KO’s) in London on Saturday night.
“It’s massively life changing. I beat this kid and things can move for me which I’ve been wanting for a while but for whatever reason it hasn’t happened for me,” Quarless told BoxingScene.
“I thought beating Steve Collins Jr would have opened a lot of doors for me. It maybe hindered my career a bit. Nobody wants to touch you, that’s the problem. You’ve just gotta keep waiting and I have waited my turn.”
Quarless was due to make his step up this time last year against the unbeaten Michael Webster but the Teesider was forced to withdraw at the last moment. The Liverpudlian’s decision to box a late notice opponent ended up costing him six months of his career but he has finally been rewarded. Beating the highly touted Riley will more than make up for the lost time and frustration.
“I was supposed to fight Webster but he failed his medical two days before. I boxed a journeyman and detached my bicep in the fight,” he said. “Everything happens for a reason and I’ve got the breakout fight I wanted against somebody who’s got a massive platform with all his Instagram followers and his YouTube following because of his connections with KSI. It’s on Sky television too.
“Beat him and I should get those people wanting to watch me too and get the recognition that I should have been getting since I beat Collins.”
Quarless has a shiny unbeaten record, no stoppage victories and is a stranger to all but the most hardcore boxing fans. It is easy to see why he has been given the fight with Riley. The thinking will be that his record has been built almost solely against journeyman and will leave him totally unprepared for a fighter like Riley. Unsurprisingly, Quarless doesn’t feel that way. He may have been hand picked for Saturday night but he and his team spent six months chasing this fight themselves. Now he has it, he is fully expecting to wake up on Sunday morning as the fighter being chased.
“It’s not as if I was offered the fight with four or five weeks notice,” he said. “We’ve been calling for this since about March. We wanted this fight. It’s not as if they put it to us, we put it to them. I fancy my chances. I know what I can do. I can make anyone look stupid and if people underestimate my power, it’ll fall right into my hands.
“When he first gets hit with a big shot he’ll be thinking ‘Sh!t. I can’t just walk through him’ and when you start thinking against me, the rounds will just pass him by. I’m really excited for it and really excited to show what I can do. Everybody’s writing me off but that’s spurred me on even more.
“As I said, it’s a life changing moment and it’s just about me going doing it now. We’ve waited long enough.”