By Keith Idec

Chris Eubank Jr. wasn’t faced with an elite opponent, but he made a successful super middleweight debut Saturday.

England’s Eubank stopped an extremely resilient Renold Quinlan in the 10th round of their scheduled 12-rounder in London. With Eubank battering a defenseless Quinlan against the ropes, referee Howard Foster mercifully stepped in to stop the one-sided fight at 2:07 of the 10th round.

A faster, stronger Eubank (24-1, 19 KOs) dominated Australia’s Quinlan (11-2, 7 KOs) over the final three-plus rounds of the main event of a pay-per-view broadcast from Olympia National. The 27-year-old Eubank won the IBO super middleweight title, but reiterated he might move back down to middleweight for fights against Gennady Golovkin or Billy Joe Saunders.

“It was like hitting concrete,” Eubank said regarding Quinlan’s head. “Big respect to Renold Quinlan. He flew halfway around the world to defend his title against one of the best in the world. He didn’t have to do that.”

Quinlan didn’t go down during the fight, despite absorbing a lot of punishment, particularly in the final four rounds.

The former champion showed incredible toughness during the ninth round, when Eubank drilled him with back-to-back right uppercuts that snapped back Quinlan’s head. An aggressive Eubank kept throwing power punches, but Quinlan, with his back against the ropes, took everything Eubank could land and wouldn’t go down.

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Using an array of hooks, uppercuts and body shots, Eubank assaulted Quinlan throughout the seventh and eighth rounds.

Eubank drilled Quinlan with a right uppercut in the sixth round, and followed it up with a left hook that sent Quinlan falling backward. Quinlan leaned on the top rope to help keep himself up once Eubank landed those shots, and he was able to make it to the end of the sixth round.

His speed advantage enabled Eubank to land multiple combinations during the fifth round. By then, Eubank had taken complete control of the fight.

Eubank landed a lunging left hook at the beginning of the fourth round that knocked Quinlan backward. He landed two more left hooks in succession toward the end of the fourth round, which made Quinlan bob and weave his way to surviving the round.

Eubank and Quinlan engaged in a long, entertaining exchange of power punches during the final half of the third round. Quinlan’s back was against the ropes for most of that sequence, which began with Eubank landing a solid right uppercut, only to have Quinlan land a right uppercut of his own.

The 27-year-old Quinlan won the IBO 168-pound championship in his previous fight.

He knocked out former IBF and WBA middleweight champion Daniel Geale in the second round of that bout, October 16 in Tasmania, Australia. Geale (31-5, 16 KOs) is 35, had been stopped in two of his three previous bouts by Miguel Cotto and Golovkin and his fight against Quinlan was Geale’s debut as a super middleweight.

A younger, fresher Eubank proved to be a much more difficult foe for Quinlan.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.