A Boxing Memory: Noel Quarless

By FightPost: MMA & Boxing News on 23rd Aug 2024

Noel Quarless had thirty-one fights. He barely had a winning record. Twelve defeats littered his record. Many of those reversals came by way of stoppage. It is on the surface, an unassuming resume. The look of a journeyman. An ordinary record of an ordinary fighter. But in many ways, Quarless was no ordinary fighter. His story could have been very different.

I first became aware of the Liverpool heavyweight in 1983. Two big stoppages over Anders Eklund and John L Gardner seemed to indicate the arrival of a new heavyweight star. A heavyweight contender who looked as though he had made a serious breakthrough.

In 1981, Quarless turned professional when he was just eighteen and was only twenty-one when he retired John L Gardner at the Bloomsbury Hotel in London, in a fight that went out on ITV.

Eklund, a future European heavyweight champion, was blown away inside a round. Gardner, a former British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight champion on the comeback trail, lasted only a round longer. Gardner never fought again. Quarless appeared to have a golden future.

Quarless banged the drum for a domestic showdown with Frank Bruno. He claims Bruno never fancied it. Either way, it didn't happen. But there was, at the time, considerable hype around the 6'4'' heavyweight hopeful. Maybe if he had shared a ring with Bruno, his story might have turned out very differently. Quarless could certainly punch. Bruno did have a perceived certain amount of fragility around him. One punch could have changed everything. For both.

Those two fights with Eklund and Gardner were the peak times. Prior to that, Quarless had lost three times. All inside the distance. Funso Banjo, father of two of the members of Diversity, had stopped Quarless in three rounds eight months prior to the win over Eklund. Following his stunning demolition of Gardner, Quarless's career went on a downward curve.

Three defeats followed. All the hype was suddenly extinguished. Quarless lost on a 7th disqualification to the Canadian Conroy Nelson in 1984. But the worst was yet to come. Two defeats to the American journeyman Mark Lee followed, the second courtesy of a first-round stoppage.

Theo Josephs, who had previously stopped Quarless inside a round in 1982 before losing the immediate rematch on points four months later, was wheeled out again for the 'comeback' and Quarless got a repeat win on points. But the rest of his career was a series of low-key wins before losing more often than not when he stepped up the levels.

Quarless fought on until 1990. He lost three final eliminators for the British heavyweight title. Horace Notice stopped him in seven rounds in 1985. Hughroy Currie beat Quarless on points in 1987 and 1988. There was a decent enough win on paper over John Tate in between the two defeats to Currie. But the former world heavyweight champion was a shell of his former self when he came to the York Hall. But it was another false dawn for Quarless. Derek Williams stopped him inside a round, and when Lennox Lewis took only two rounds to stop the Merseyside fighter in 1990, the once-promising career of Quarless was now over.

The opening round of the fight with Lewis probably summed up the career of Noel Quarless. He acquitted himself way in those opening three minutes, but it was another night and another fight where he flattered to deceive.

Quarless always had talent. Fast, mobile, and he could punch. There was most certainly a question mark over his chin and his dedication to the sport. But on his day, he could probably have beaten most of the domestic heavyweights of his era. He never fought again after his defeat to Lennox Lewis, who was unbeaten in six fights at the time and left the sport with a 19-12 resume. Make no mistake, he was a lot better fighter than his record suggests. Very much a story of what could have been.