Rocket prepares for take-off

BOXING: When a routine scan revealed a cyst near his brain, boxer Wayne McCullough thought he was going to die, writes Johnny Watterson 'I thought I'd been told I was going to die, I'd been told one blow could kill me so I had to resolve that. I hit my lowest point and I got psychiatric help''I've been a pro nine years, but I've only fought five. I've had 27 fights. I'm still pretty fresh, not much mileage. That's why I'm still fighting.'

For almost six months Wayne McCullough was frozen into one day of his life. Couldn't get it out of his head.

Couldn't move on from one moment in October almost two years ago. His family life diminished, his boxing became fraught with fear and for the first and only time in his 32 years, he became frightened stepping into the ring. Wayne McCullough, the former bantamweight champion of the world believed he was going to die.

Why and how the information filtered down to him as brutally as that is confused, but prior to a scheduled fight against Sandor Koczak in Belfast in October 18th, 2000, McCullough was told that a routine scan had revealed a cyst near his brain.

Consequently the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) immediately refused him a licence to fight. The best boxing chin in the game returned to Las Vegas addled and confused. Stripped of both his health and his future in the profession, McCullough also carried with him a boxer's worst affliction - self doubt.

"The first six months was really hard. I'd to get help. I was left hanging. I don't know what words to use to explain it, but I just went somewhere else . . . I was hurt like . . . I didn't care about anything. It wasn't depression. I just didn't give a damn, didn't care whether I lived or died.

"I thought I'd been told I was going to die, I'd been told one blow could kill me so I had to resolve that. I could have killed myself. I could have taken to alcohol. I didn't do that. I prayed to God every day. Believe me, I hit my lowest point and I went and got psychiatric help. He explained that I was living in October 2000, going back, going back. I was living in that day and I couldn't take the step to get back because one person was saying this, another was saying that."

McCullough sits in a Belfast city centre café sipping his lunch, a bottle of water. The glances cast at him in his over-sized tracksuit tell the story of a boxer the city has not forgotten. He is a regular visitor. Four years ago he travelled from his home in Las Vegas to open a gym on protestant Sandy Row. All last week he split his time pounding the roads around Holywood, where he is now considering settling, and the bags.

"While I've been there a lot of catholic kids have come to watch me. It's above an Orange Hall," he says. "To me it's a boxing gym. As a pro I don't fight in any colours but I'm proud of where I come from, proud of competing in the Commonwealth Games, proud of competing in the Olympics."

Perplexed more than angry, his mission is to reclaim the lost years since the BBBC finally handed him his licence to box in June of this year. Why they did it then rather than 18 months ago, he cannot understand.

The respected Nevada State Athletic Commission had no problems with a licence when stringent tests at the UCLA Medical Centre in California, the USA's leading specialists, cleared him to box.

The Nevada Commission's findings concurred with a November 2000 report from Peter Richards, a consultant neurosurgeon, who works with the BBBC. His study stated that Wayne McCullough "is not in any greater risk of an intracranial haemorrhage than any other boxer".

Another report was issued March 29th, 2001, by Prof Jack Phillips, an associate professor of surgery and consultant neurosurgeon at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin. In it he recommended "that Wayne McCullough be considered by the Boxing Union of Ireland for a boxing licence".

With his wife, and manager, Cheryl, he has stacked up what he now calls "his evidence", the scans, the letters, the specialist reports, the dates, the times. McCullough is armed with information. He is back in control again.

"I really, really wanted to finish boxing at 29 and have about 40 or 50 fights and maybe another belt or two," he says. "But I'd two years off with my promoter problem with Matt Tinley in 1997 and I'd two more off with the British Board. I've been a pro nine years, but I've only fought five. I've had 27 fights. I'm still pretty fresh, not much mileage. That's why I'm still fighting.

"Money? Everybody knows I've made good money out of boxing. Know what I mean? I love to fight. If I didn't, I'd be gone. Some fighters have been going for 10 years and can't spell their name. It's sad. I don't want to go like that. But look around.

"Bernard Hopkins is 38. Roy Jones, one of the best pound for pound fighters is 36. A few people have said 32 is getting old. But I say to them Zaragosa (Daniel) was 39 when he beat me. He became world champion for the third time at 37. I've got plenty of time."

A fighter's effulgence has the tendency to wash over you like a breaking wave. Separating the air and froth from the substance can be sometimes difficult, but the tight, man-and-wife team of Wayne and Cheryl is anything but unaware. He has experienced first hand what it is like for a boxer to be killed in the ring. Spectating at a Las Vegas bout a couple of years ago, Jimmy Garcia died in front of him while he was also present in the same city when Robert Wangila was killed. Like McCullough, Wangila was an Olympic star.

"Yeah, fighters die. I've seen it in Vegas. It's really sad. I saw Jimmy Garcia and Wangila. But if you'd asked those two guys they'd have told you, it's all they wanted to do. Every fighter knows the risk. I don't get in thinking I'll get killed. I get in thinking I love it. But you have to have a sort of faith.

"I know I'll still be criticised. When I didn't get my licence, it was 'ah poor McCullough, isn't it sad him not getting his licence.' Then when I got it, it was 'McCullough shouldn't fight. '"

Tonight in the York Hall in Bethnal Green, he will step into the ring for the first of his European comeback fights against South African Johannes Maisa, a 20-year-old and former African champion who has been keeping active. McCullough could have begun with a softer option.

Two rounds of boxing against Alvin Brown in three years has been his competitive sum total but with the death of his career has come a rebirth and that alone has given him regenerated direction and impetus.

"I've had a few good fights behind closed doors. They call them smokers. Before my last fight I did that. It hurts. There's no referee. I had the big gloves on; my opponent had the small gloves on. They hit about twice as hard. Sugar Ray Leonard did it when he came back to beat Marvin Hagler after a four-year lay off. That's where I got it from. I'll be ready for him. I treat everybody like they're a world champion."

Current promoter Frank Warren is nudging McCullough towards the WBO featherweight ranks where Julio Chacon will defend his title next month against Glaswegian Scott Harrison. McCullough would prefer the lighter super bantamweight WBC division, which already suggests a little friction between fighter promoter.

Once again he has to prove himself, show the paying public and Warren what an asset he is, remind them of the bustling high-tempo style of fighting that many have forgotten.

"My first 12 fights were against tough Mexicans and I knocked 11 of them out. All of a sudden I had a punch. Then I didn't. As an amateur I had about 200 fights and knocked out about 100 people. This is a tough fight to throw me in on but I'm looking to get out first or second round. I know I can clean him out," he says.

Water finished, the Pocket Rocket shuffles off into Belfast city, the gunmetal sky spilling aerosol rain. A young man going back to work, a fighter moving on.