Andrade known as ‘Boo Boo’ in the ring has stopped 18 of his opponents including Dubliner Luke Keeler. Quigley will have to replicate his coach’s feat if he is the overcome the unbeaten Andrade and bring one of the more prestigious belts in pro boxing back to the hills of Donegal.

His journey from Ballybofey to New Hampshire has been circuitous. He once had a first-class flight booked to go to Japan for the official announcement of a world title fight against Ryota Murata. But the deal fell through. Later he was in the frame for possible title shots against the legendary Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Jaime Munguia, but nothing came of them.

He won’t earn enough on Friday night to secure his financial future but he simply couldn’t turn down this opportunity. Having won a career-defining fight against Shane Mosley Jnr in May this is Quigley’s first brush with real stardom.

There are striking parallels between Quigley’s career and Andy Lee’s. The latter was the first graduate of the IABA’s High Performance Unit. He was the only Irish boxer to qualify for the Athens Olympics and though he didn’t win a medal he was set to be the IABA’s poster boy ahead of the Beijing Games in 2008.

But a phone call on Christmas Day 2002 from the legendary Detroit based trainer Emanuel ‘Manny’ Steward changed his life. Three years later he left Ireland to pursue a pro career in the US.

By the time Quigley graduated to box at elite level in Ireland standards had soared and he had to be patient before being crowned Irish champion. But as soon as he hit the international circuit his pedigree shone. In the space of five months in 2013 he won gold at the European championship before reaching the world amateur final.

An 18-month run of 33 wins on the spin came to an end in the gold medal bout against a fresher Kazakh middleweight who had benefitted from a walk-over in the semi-final. Nonetheless, Quigley was now hot property in boxing. He opted not to try and qualify for the Rio Olympics. Instead he headed to the west coast of the United States where he signed a professional deal with the famed Oscar De La Hoya company Golden Boy Promotions.

Quigley lived up to his moniker, ‘El Animal’, destroying his first 12 opponents, albeit they were hand-picked to ease his path into the brutal world of professional fighting. But he achieved all but two of his wins inside the distance and five in the first round.

Then, in March 2017 he secured his first ranking belt: the North American Boxing Federation middleweight title. But his unanimous points win over Glen Tapia came at a price. In the second round Quigley broke his right hand and tore a tendon. He didn’t box again for 12 months.

“Ah look, in anybody’s life and anybody’s career, there are always lows,” says Quigley. “I don’t think on paper, people can judge your lows and highs as if they are lower than other people’s low. But I think everybody’s low affect them the same way.”

He acknowledges that being out injured for so long was horrible. “I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was living in LA at the time, didn’t have family and friends with me.”

After career-saving surgery, he lived with his manager Ken Sheer for a couple of weeks. “It was just nice to be in a house with his kids and wife. They were cooking me a bit to eat but just to have somebody to talk shit to in the evening, instead of sitting on my own and just thinking about my hand was very helpful.”

But as the months passed, as he waited for the all clear to spar again, he missed the camaraderie of the gym and the endorphins produced when he worked up a sweat. By then he was also back living alone in his apartment.

“I just love training. It is what makes me happy. For me not being able to train was so difficult. Really, all I was doing was lying around watching the television and eating shite. And that’s not a good recipe for anything.”

But at least he didn’t pile on weight. “My auld metabolism is pretty good,” he says. “I wasn’t depressed or anything. But I was down in the dumps, so I wasn’t in the form to eat too much.

“I don’t touch drink at all really, maybe every Christmas, I might have a wee something to celebrate, a wee whiskey or Baileys or something like that. But I have never had a pint in my life. I am probably lucky too that I am like that because that could have been a very bad road to go down when I was injured.”

He made a winning return to the ring in March 2018. But the momentum of his career had stalled, and it hit rock bottom when he suffered his first loss to Olympian Tureano Johnson in 2019. By now he had moved back home and was being trained in Sheffield by Dominic Ingle. The partnership didn’t gel, however.

Quigley’s once promising career was drifting badly until he had lunch one day with Andy Lee. “The next thing we knew we were in the gym training. It just happened like that. And the relationship we have is great. We really understand each other, and Andy is such an easy-going person and I like that in a coach. We connect really well.

“He hasn’t taken me and said I am going to change this and change that. He has just tweaked some things, things in my stance, punching power and technique. Simple things that a lot of people might look at and think that doesn’t mean anything. But it has been unbelievable.”

Quigley believes the obstacles he has encountered have not just strengthened his mental resolve but shaped his outlook on life.

“These things made me the way I am today. Nothing is really an issue to me no more. I know what I want from life. And I go out and try to live the best life I can every single day.

“But in terms of expecting things, I don’t expect things no more from life. I believe things will happen if you go and be the best person that you can be.”

Andrade, who has failed to land the kind of lucrative fights which his record suggests he deserves, is so confident about the outcome that he hasn’t bothered to put a rematch clause into the fight contract.

In 2012 Andy Lee secured his first world title shot at the age of 28 against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in El Paso. The odds were stacked against him and he was stopped in the seventh round. Quigley turned 30 in May. He is still young enough to follow in the footsteps of Lee and come back, regardless of the outcome of Friday’s contest. He still has some distance to travel, though of course a win against the head would instantly transform his career.