Noel Quarless

quarless was a good puncher with fast hands but just was not matched or groomed in the way a prospect is, mostly because the british heavyweight scene was tied up at that time. I saw him knock john L gardner out on tv as a kid. Against Lewis he was brave and landed a good shot himself.

 

I remember him being tipped to beat Bruno...

 

I remember him as an amateur and then as a young pro at The Stadium in Liverpool. A good puncher but vulnerable himself. Really come to prominence with the ko's over Anders Ecklund and John L Gardner.

 

quarless looked a bit tasty after the Eklund and Gardner wins but i always felt that there was an attempt to quash noels progress through the ranks the following year by the cartel that ran british boxing. The Duff, barret promotership (who also had interests in Frank Bruno) matched quarless against useful but unknown heavyweights (on their shows) scouted in from America with what i consider to be the intention of making quarless look awful. Ironically within this period noel was knocked out on the same card that Bruno was kayoed by bonecrusher. I think this sufficiently softened up noel for the cartels next hope horace notice (a good fighter) soon after. The whole heavyweight scene was sewn up, there were some fair class heavyweights about that were not allowed to get going and because there was a monopoly of promotional shenanigans going on i think it prevented what could have been quite a healthy era in british heavyweight boxing. noel quarless, frank bruno, funso banjo, horace notice, gary mason the returning joe bugner...all could have fought each other.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emgWXHIqhyo

 

:good, just watched the Ecklund fight as well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQ-lx9pKZ0

 

Quarless was one of those fighters who would have been a real danger to everyone outside the top 10, but could just as easily come unstuck against a nobody. He was a good puncher and very dangerous early on.

I don't know how much management issues or, if at all, lifestyle/dedication came into it in his particular case, but professional boxing's a hard game if you're going in there taking 50-50 fights all the time. You're going to need favourable treatment and/or exceptional abilities to build lasting career momentum.

 

If you are in a position where there has been sufficient investment to ensure great full time training and careful matchmaking the fighter will develop into his full potential. If not he won't.

I think a fighter who still caused surprises when more things are against him proves that there was always something there. It's easy to look chinny or glass jawed if a youngster is matched like that. Pity is this kind of thing often happens. There is room for only so many stars in pro boxing. It is a full time job for a team of people to make one champion.

 

Thats right...like in many other walks of life, ability on it's own , is rarely enough.
Its not what you know...etc..
The right connections are everything.
We"ve all seen people with little ability 'getting on'...usually because of their 'connections'.
Quarless was in the second tier of a lively scene at the time.He seemed to be matched quite hard early,with the inevitable results.

 

Quarless had plenty of opportunities to step up to the plate he was in 3 eliminators for the British title and lost all of them 2 by ko. He lost to nearly every decent domestic heavyweight he met. Manny Gabriel 6-8-1 kod him in1rd
Funso Banjo 9-0-0 in 3rds
Horace Notice 6-0-0 in7rds
HughRoy Currie decisioned him in10rds
Lennox 6-0-0 stopped him in2 rds
His best wins were over a 7 fight Eklund, and Gardner who was at the end of the road having his last fight.
Quarless was chinny, he was kod several times before he got anywhere near Mickey Duff's promotions.
Choklab sees conspiracies everywhere Mickey Duff promoted and
made matches.
The idea that domestic heavyweights were excluded to promote Duff's interests is bull ****.Duff relied on domestic opponents to build champs.
I saw:
Billy Aird
Neville Mead
Michael Murray
Funso Banjo
Noel Quarless
Derek Williams
Henry Ackinwande
Hughroy Currie
Frank Bruno
Horace Notice
John L Gardner
Rudy Pika
Manny Gabriel
Joe Awome
Gary Mason
Stan McDermott
Jess Harding
Dave Garside
Glenn McCrory
Denton Ruddock
And several other domestic heavies on Duff promotions.

Duff would have welcomed more" vanilla" among the heavyweights at domestic level to stimulate interest , the fact is Quarless wasn't good enough, he invariably failed when he stepped up.
Retiring for 2 years, from1985 until 1987 didn't exactly help his career.
Choklab talks about the Duff/Barret Cartel stifling Quarless .
Mike Barret left the group of Duff, Astaire, and Lawless in1987
The only reason Barret was included in the mix was because he had the exclusive rights for boxing at the RAH.

 

But how many of those British heavyweights who were not in a cartel stable got American/Mexican imported opposition for their first few fights like Bruno and Mason?

Did Bruno and Mason even fight most of those guys? I remember Mason fighting Harding once he was already title level but he never got Garside, Westgarth, Murray, Derek Williams or mccrory

Stuart Lithgow (one of the few brits he fought at novis level) gave Bruno a bit of a scare short notice. Why didn't Frank fight McDermott, pika, quarless, or Palmer? David Pearce and Banjo were kind of frozen out.

The cartel could afford easier imported build up opponents so that's what they did. Not all of the managers had that luxury.

Mason, Bruno and Notice probably were the best but they had a lot going for them.

 

I remember Pika fighting Bruno in the ABA final, he was a tough lad. RIP.