QUIGG IS A MUMMY’S BOY
World champ Quigg still lives at home with his ‘best friend’
‘Scott broke his hand... but still went running twice a day!’
SCOTT QUIGG, who will bank another couple of million from his world title fight on Saturday night, still lives with his mum in the tiny, twobedroom terrace in Bury where he grew up.
Although the WBA super-bantamweight champion has been engaged to his long-time girlfriend Beverley for three years, the only regular time they spend together is the 24 hours between midday on a Saturday and midday Sunday.
Regular, that is, unless Quigg has an alternative Saturday night date in the ring.
As he does in Manchester this weekend against Belfast’s IBF champion Carl Frampton, in British boxing’s biggest dust-up since Carl Froch flattened George Groves at Wembley in 2014.
Just once during their six-year courtship has Quigg agreed to extend their weekend so he and Beverley could enjoy a ‘romantic trip’ to New York.
Romantic? This is how he describes their one full day in the Big Apple: ‘I went for a morning run in Central Park. We were due to go shopping in the afternoon but the chance came up for some sparring in a famous gym there. We had dinner reservations but I was tired after all the training so we had an early night.’
This is obsession of a strict monastic order. Trainers encourage their fighters to ‘live the life’ in order to maximise their careers. By that they mean training, sleeping and eating right but not eliminating all other interests.
Quigg goes beyond even the most Spartan demands. Now 27, he has lived in that humble home since he was six. One reason is this: ‘When I get up in the morning and go down to the kitchen for a cup of tea, my mum Lyndsay makes my bed and tidies my room within five minutes. I don’t have to think about anything except training and fighting.’
What about down-time with friends? ‘Mum is my best friend,’ he says. ‘Has been all my life. My mum did a milk round in the morning and two paper rounds every day. She did it for us. She did it to give me pocket money to go to the gym. She did it so I could get a car. She did it to pay for my trips to America for quality training there.
‘Like me, she hated school. So she helped me drop out at 15. It was illegal for me to quit school but after I kept throwing my homework on the corridor floor they let me do it. It would be an insult to her if I ever went drinking and partying. She goes everywhere with me.’
That she does, including to the fabled Wild Card gym in Hollywood where master- trainer Freddie Roach hones such talents as Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto.
‘Mum fits in at the gym,’ he says. So much so that she has been known to work her son on the pads when no pro is available. Quigg’s mother has kept him on the straightest of paths since his father Kenny instilled in him the hunger to fight for his life.
‘Dad took me to the window-making factory where he worked and ordered me to sweep floors three days a week for £20 a day,’ says Quigg.
‘He told me to look at the faces of the older lads working there and KENYA’S top athletics official was provisionally suspended by the IAAF world governing body yesterday ‘in the interests of the integrity of the sport’. Athletics Kenya chief executive Isaac Mwangi denies claims by two athletes who failed drugs tests that he sought bribes to reduce their suspensions. Sprinter Joy Sakari and hurdler Francisca Koki Manunga say Mwangi asked each of them for around £15,000 to slash their four-year bans. see how miserable they were. He told me not to waste my life the way he had. He was a promising footballer but too much social life stopped him making it as a pro. Then he asked me if I wanted to spend the rest of my years working in a s***hole like that.
‘Since then I have never slacked in my boxing.’
Quigg is helped in his extreme dedication by the pleasure he derives from all the hard work. When asked how he will celebrate should he win this battle with Frampton, he says: ‘I’ll tell my mum she can stop watching through her fingers and we’ll go back to the hotel to spend time with Beverley and the family. I’ll probably go for a run Sunday and be back in the gym Monday.
‘When people wonder how I keep making the sacrifices, I tell them that the only sacrifice for me would be not training and boxing. Now that really would make me miserable.’
Quigg’s trainer Joe Gallagher confirms: ‘Only once has he spent any time away from the gym. That was when he broke his hand and we ordered him to rest for two weeks. So what did Scott do? Went running twice a day, of course.’
Surely there is some spare time? ‘ Yes,’ says Quigg. ‘ I spend it watching films of great old fighters. I absorb something more every time I switch on the videos. I love it.’
Quigg, like Frampton, is undefeated. He believes he will stop the Belfast Jackal inside six rounds.
His promoter Eddie Hearn secured him this home fight in the Manchester Arena by offering Frampton a guaranteed £1.5million. He expects the pay-per-view buys on Sky Box Office to lift his man’s purse to £2m.
But Quigg says: ‘I’m not materialistic. The only treat I’ve ever bought myself is the Jaguar I drive now and I only did that because my mother kept telling me I had truly earned it.’
The patient Beverley would like a ‘nice wedding and a home in the Lancashire countryside’.
Quigg says: ‘I can afford to do that now. Although me, I would marry her quietly tomorrow. But she puts up with a lot from me and I will give her the big wedding and buy us that house in the sticks. One day, when I’ve beaten Carl and everyone else and become the undisputed world champion.’
One day. Frampton v Quigg is live on Sky Sports Box Office on Saturday night.