By Jake Donovan

For as long as he's been in the game, Daniel Geale has been known as one of the (few) good guys in boxing. Unfortunately, he has reached a point in his career where its best moments are now memories rather than still to come.

The former middleweight titlist suffered a shocking 2nd round knockout loss to countryman Renold Quinlan in their IBO super middleweight title fight Friday evening in Launceston, Australia.

Geale - inactive since a 4th round knockout loss to then-World middleweight king Miguel Cotto last June - was seeking a fresh start at super middleweight in hopes of preserving his career. The 35-year old Aussie quickly found out, however, that he is merely prolonging the inevitable, that his days at the title level are long gone.

No live televised coverage was provided for his clash versus Quinlan, a respectable but unheralded 11-fight prospect heading into the night. The 27 year old boxer was riding a two-fight win streak following a close points loss to Jake Carr in Dec. '14, his lone defeat to date.

Still, he came in as a heavy betting underdog versus Geale, whose best days are gone but whose overall ring experience and accomplishments put him at an 8-1 favorite to return to the win column for the first time in nearly two years.

Instead, he landed on the wrong end of one of the year's biggest upsets. He also suffered his third knockout loss in the span of just four fights.

The previous setbacks came at the hands of Cotto (at a catchweight that left Geale drained) and Gennady Golovkin, the unbeaten, unified middleweight titlist and widely regarded as the best 160-pound boxer on the planet. To summarize - no shame in the boxers against whom he was defeated.

Perhaps history will one day paint a picture where Quinlan (11-1, 8KOs) soared to great heights. For now, it's a flag-raising defeat for Geale (31-5, 16KOs) as a single shot ended his night in just over four minutes. Whether a man without a weight class - too big for middleweight, too frail for super middleweight - or a boxer simply at the end of his career, Geale has a major decision to make once he recovers from his latest setback.

The hope is that his next move is to call it a career.

Twitter: @JakeNDaBox_v2