On this day five weeks ago Darren McDermott opened up to Boxing News Online about his second chance at a British title being the fight of his life – today he feels lucky just to have his life.

In that time-frame, a perfectly fit boxer went from being a British super middleweight title contender to a seriously ill man undergoing the sort of brain surgery only one in five wake up from.

How could this happen, he and all of us asked when the news finally came to light?

Initially it was thought that an innocuous and accidental bang on the head sparring in Wales with Nathan Cleverly, as both had big title fights coming up, had done all of the damage.

But McDermott was well enough to return to his Dudley home in the West Midlands and even returned to work, before being admitted to hospital after feeling unwell.

A scan showed bleeding to the brain, bad enough for surgeons to decide to immediately operate.

It got worse – an aneurysm was found during surgery that had been there a while and was only getting bigger.

Over the two days that followed before McDermott came round again, the status of Paul Smith’s next challenger paled into insignificance to a married father-of-two’s fight for life.

His boxing career was over the moment he went under the knife, but at the end of it all his life’s work didn’t really seem to matter.

Thankfully, the doctors reckon the 32-year-old will now make a full recovery, but a sobering example of how fragile life, never mind boxing, should never be forgotten.

He said: “The surgeons couldn’t believe I had been walking around like it for that long, it must have either been my pain threshold or my fitness that got me through it.

“Any normal person in the street would have had a stroke, they told me, my fitness got me through it and that’s why I am still here today.

“I am just pleased to be alive after how close I came to dying.”

Such was the fight in the man that two weeks after surgery McDermott made his first appearance in public, at the boxing super-show in Birmingham nine days ago.

Boxing stars of past and present were literally left, right and centre at ringside – they showed how much it really is ‘the brotherhood’ by welcoming back a fellow warrior with open arms.

Perhaps the most surreal of well wishers was none other than ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed, another whose career ended far too early.

The two go way back, having met as teenagers when both were called up to an England training camp in Portsmouth.

McDermott explained: “Naseem was like ‘yeah man, I was there, I can remember’ and was talking to me for ages.

“He couldn’t help but ask me ‘what’s with the hat?’ I told him what had happened and he was really sorry to hear it.

“People say that my injury couldn’t have happened at a worse time with the British title shot next month but it could have, I could have been in the ring with the champion when it got worse.

“That would have been a war and I might not have been here afterwards.

“I would rather have 12 more years with my kids than 12 more rounds in the ring.”

The champion was another at ringside on that very night, extending the arm of friendship to his former challenger and expressing his sorrow that the two would never get it on in the ring.

That won’t make it hurt any less when English champion Paul David, not McDermott, stands across the ring from Smith with the British title on the line at Liverpool’s Echo Arena in three weeks time.

But ‘the Black County Bodysnatcher’ can offer advice on Smith’s strengths and weaknesses, having studied him as an opponent for weeks, ahead of fight night.

McDermott said: “Paul Smith has got to box him, he doesn’t want to go start going in there with an arrogant attitude thinking he will walk through it, because he won’t.

“Paul David can punch but I think he could get outboxed, because he doesn’t really throw a lot.

“I told Smith at the show that if he goes in there with a macho attitude, thinking he’s going to knock him out, it could be him that gets knocked out.

“If he gets into a fight with him, he’s vulnerable.”

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