Blackwell plight underlines risks of the boxer’s trade

Nick Blackwell, a brave champion, could have given no more in losing to Chris Eubank Jr at Wembley Arena on Saturday night and, for his sacrifice, he was the focus of much love and anxiety yesterday while being closely watched in an induced coma in a London hospital.

Few ringside witnesses were more concerned than the winner's father, Chris Eubank Sr, who told his son less than six minutes before the fight was halted in the 10th round: "You're not going to take him out to the face, you're going to take him out to the body." The former world champion, who oversees his son's training, could also be heard telling him between the eighth and ninth rounds: "If the referee doesn't stop it, then I don't know what to tell you. But I will tell you this: if he doesn't stop it and we keep beating him like this, he is getting hurt and, if it goes to a decision, why didn't the referee stop the fight? I don't get why."

Eubank Sr, whose fight with Michael Watson in 1991 ended with the Londoner crippled and confined to a wheelchair for many years, was clearly concerned that the defeated British middleweight champion might be in similar jeopardy.

Channel 5, which showed the fight, has blocked transmission of the bout on social media but a clip posted on Facebook by the website, Boxing Guru, which was viewed more than 100,000 times in its first hour, picked up the revealing instructions issued by Eubank in those closing moments of what was a brutal contest.

Blackwell, who had lost every round, strove still to be competitive in a losing cause, as Eubank eased his way through the final, tense moments. The action, which had featured several jolting uppercuts to Blackwell’s head in earlier exchanges, as well as some stiff responses by the champion, slowed as both fighters tired.

A little more than half a minute from the end of the 10th round the able referee, Victor Loughlin, stopped the action to take ringside medical advice and judged that swelling around Blackwell’s left eye was too debilitating for him to continue.

Shortly afterwards the boxer collapsed, was put on oxygen support, carried from the arena on a stretcher and taken to hospital.

Surgeons put him into a coma to ease pressure on his brain, where they had detected bleeding, and, as they considered their options, the minute-by-minute monitoring of his condition began, calmly and professionally at the hospital and with predictably more noise from a distance.

Some people, informed more by concern than expertise, wondered if Blackwell’s trainer, Gary Lockett, might have pulled him out before the enforced stoppage. Lockett, himself a former world title challenger, is a compassionate and intelligent man; if he had seen signs that his fighter did not want to continue, he would surely have done the right thing.

Similarly Loughlin, one of the best referees in the UK, was chided. But he, too, was guided by the evidence in front of him, which was of a determined, fit champion trying his best to hold on to his title under extreme pressure.

The debate about the sport’s viability in a civilised society will inevitably drown out some of the concern for the fighter. Abolitionists will call for boxing to be banned. Old arguments on both sides will be recycled. None of this should be ignored but nor should either side deny that using Blackwell as an unconscious pawn in their argument is an unedifying spectacle.

The moral dilemma and the dangers that attend boxing will always be there. But boxers live with them. They are willing to take the risks and, in considerable numbers, paying customers are just as willing to watch.

Fighters fight for a variety of reasons: money, pride, lack of alternative employment opportunities or a combination of these, all driven by a primal need or instinct that not everyone understands but few can argue does not exist.

Blackwell, a proud, 25-year-old champion from Trowbridge in Wiltshire, never boxed as an amateur. Instead he fought in white-collar bouts before turning professional and he discovered the trade suited him. A dedicated fighter, he had talent enough to win the vacant British title in his 20th fight with a seventh-round stoppage of the accomplished John Ryder less than a year ago.

On Saturday night Blackwell entered the ring a heavy underdog. But the champion was lifted in his endeavours by the prospect of keeping the prized Lonsdale Belt if he could successfully defend his title for a third time. He wanted victory desperately, and fought accordingly. Eubank was too strong, too heavy-handed and too good, but Blackwell stood his ground and gave his best. He knew no other way.

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