Last Friday, Renold Vatubua Quinlan, shocked the boxing world when he stopped Daniel Geale in two rounds to claim the IBO world super middleweight title.

With only 12 fights under his belt, Quinlan is now on par with the likes of WBA champion Felix Sturm, Miguel Cotto and knockout artist Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin.

According to his uncle cum trainer, Lepani Wilson, the way to the top was not easy especially when they had to ‘bite the bullet’ and take the risk.

This was because during the early years, it had become frustrating for Team Quinlan, when boxers they had wanted him to fight as build-ups were evading him.

After a handful of fights, they decided that there was no point of waiting around but to move up and fight the top boxers in the weight division.

They stuck to the plan and did not dodge any boxer that came their way.

Despite suffering a setback on a point’s decision loss to Jake Carr for the Australian super middleweight title, this only made Team Quinlan work harder and smarter. They took their chances and in no time, he won the IBO International and interim PABA super middleweight titles. These wins upped his rankings and qualified him to fight Geale for the vacant world title.

Tonight at Prince Charles Park, Nadi, some of the country’s promising boxers enter the ring with big dreams of making it internationally.

It’s not bad to dream, but the fact is that it goes with hard work and proper planning.

No one denies the fact that we’ve got talented boxers who could make it big in the boxing world.

They have got to learn from Team Quinlan’s approach.

There’s no need of being choosy on which opponent to fight next. Hand picking your opponent is not going to give you a correct indicator of how good you are.

The simple fact is that to be the best you’ve got to fight the best. That is the way to go.

We wish them well in tonight’s programme.

Pending on the outcome, the challenge is always there for our upcoming boxers on who is going to challenge, Junior ‘The Razor’ Farzan Ali for the country’s welterweight title or if not fight Opeti Tagi for the middleweight title. The onus is on them to make it happen before they look elsewhere.

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