Ex-champ quits after watching ring tragedy
Graeme Donohoe A boxer who suffered bleeding in his skull after a fight has revealed he hid headaches from the authorities before suffering the injury which put him in a coma.
Former champ Nick Blackwell spoke out days after watching tragic Mike Towell fighting Dale Evans. Mike suffered serious head injuries during the bout and died the next day. It was revealed last week that he had suffered headaches in the lead up to the contest at Glasgow’s Radisson Blu hotel.
Nick, who spent a week in a medically induced coma after losing his British middleweight title to Chris Eubank Jnr in March, was ringside at last week’s bout cheering on Dale when disaster struck.
Nick admitted it took the tragedy to make him realise how lucky he’d been to survive his own scare.
Now he’s calling for boxers to be made to have brain scans 10 days before every fight.
The 25-year-old said: “I think the Boxing Board of Control has to do something because I went into my fight with headaches, the same as Mike.
“I think boxers need to have a brain scan a week-and-a-half before a fight and a ban on sparring two weeks before because we’re our own worst enemies. We’re fighters – we’re not going to pull out.
“We go in there and make out everything’s fine. If you’ve already got a bleed there then look what happened to Mike.
“It’s stupid. I did the same as him. Just over a week before my fight, I had a 15-round spar and he hit me with some massive shots.
“I got out after and I couldn’t remember what happened in the spar.
“I woke up the next morning and I felt bad. I was ill for three days with no energy and I just felt weird but I kept it to myself.
“I just thought I was nervous about making weight. I didn’t feel right going into that fight with Eubank.
“When I told the doctor after I came out of the coma he said it made perfect sense because I had a bleed on the right of my skull and that affected the left side of my body.
“You want to go in there and do the fight of your life. It was one I thought I was going to win. The decision has to be taken out of boxers’ hands because we will fight no matter what.”
He added: “I think we should be getting brain scans.
“Obviously, the Boxing Board of Control can’t pay for that because it would cost a lot of money for every single fight but they should rule every boxerxer does it before they’rehey’re allowed to fight.”ght.”
Nick added:ded: “Before Mike died I was thinkingng I could make a comeback.
“I was feelingng so sore aboutut l o s i n g mmyy career.
“But whatat happened wasas a real s t r onn g message for me to stay out of thee sport.
“It rammedmed home exactly what could’ve happened to me.
“What happenedpened to Mike puts your whole life in perspectivective when something like this happens.
“It’s made me realise how much worse it