TRAPPED: FROM THE LIMELIGHT TO THE PSYCH WARD

*Excerpt from Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing by Tris Dixon

“IT hit the side and I felt a numbness and I remember falling and I could feel myself going down.” In his next memory, Herol “Bomber” Graham was in hospital being checked out. “After that, I watched it on television and it was then I really felt it. Watching it, I felt it.”

Now, in a very different hospital several decades removed, Graham reviewed the fight and the punch on a mobile phone. He was in a north London psychiatric ward and round four against Julian Jackson began. Moments later, the shrieks of British boxing commentator Dave Brenner could be heard. “That’s what we were worried about!”

The rerun was paused. Graham was lifeless on the canvas, having dropped suddenly.

Graham had spent eight months on a north London psych unit. It was not a fun place, but he was there because he was damaged. He was damaged from boxing. He did not slur his words,