Blood.
Itโs being coughed up and he doesnโt know why. All he knows is itโs somewhere in his chest, then in his throat, then on his tongue, and that he hasnโt yet learnt how to stop or control it. All he knows is this is not supposed to be happening. Not now, at 18 years of age. Not when training. Not when fit and healthy. Not before a fight has even broken out.
โI was lucky to have found out I had TB (tuberculosis) through boxing,โ said Mick Williamson. โI was training and having chest pains and coughing up blood.
โIn those days they would put you up in Switzerland and wait for you to die. I went to the doctors and they said it was a strain. I stayed in Grove Park [hospital] for six weeks and after that I was allowed home for weekends. I was the oldest of seven [children], so I was a bit worried about the rest of the family.โ
Williamson would never have been a good boxer, or so he says. But he shone in the school championships and even when tuberculosis tried wrecking his dream was determined to get back in the ring and pick up where he left off.
โI was driving people mad,โ he said. โAll they heard was, โWhen can I start boxing? When can I start boxing?โ But TB leaves a scar on your lung and youโve got to wait for that to heal.
โAll of a sudden I was 20 and booze, birds and God knows what else entered the equation. I forgot to ask when I could start boxing again.โ
More blood.
Heโs 23 now, blindsided by booze and birds, and somewhere inside the Stork Club in Streatham. His days of fighting in a ring are over but that doesnโt mean Mick Williamsonโs fists have necessarily retired. Ungloved, they are currently clenched in the middle of a melee, all broken glass and faces, as that unwelcome taste returns to his tongue.
โI never got cut from boxing, but I suffered one from a bottle that had to have 36 stitches,โ he said. โThere was a big scuffle, and somebody must have whacked me with a bottle.
โMy friend called an ambulance and next thing I know Iโm back in the hospital I was born in, St Jamesโ in Balham. They then went to work on my eyelids. Thirty-six stitches all told. I didnโt count them. I just asked.โ
Even more blood.
This time it pours down the face of Ricky Hatton as he sits on a corner stool. The boxer asks no questions for he knows time is of the essence and that this is not the time to be inquisitive. But still his concerns are written on his face. One of them: How bad is it? Another: Will it hold up? One more: How many rounds do I have left?
Now itโs the job of Mick Williamson, the cut man standing over him, to possess the answers and do the reassuring. Itโs October 2000 and blood is his business. If โThe Rubโ canโt cope with the cut, Jon Thaxton, Hattonโs opponent, wins the fight. If โThe Rubโ canโt stem the blood flow, nobody can.
โWhatโs strange with Ricky is that the biggest fight he ever had was against Kostya Tszyu and he never got cut. It makes no sense,โ Williamson said. โAnd the worst cuts he ever suffered were against a British title-level opponent.
โThaxton was a bit clever with his gloves. But they werenโt there to dance, were they? I remember Jon coming up to me afterwards and saying, โF**k me, Mick, when I saw that cut, I thought I had my mortgage paid.โโ
Back then, around the time he was simultaneously saving Hattonโs career and ruining Thaxtonโs plans, Williamson tended to smoke a lot. He smoked to relax, he smoked to calm his nerves, and often, in changing rooms before fights, the cigarette breaks of Mick Williamson were as common a sight as the nervous yawns of the boxer. He would be there one moment, gone the next. And when he was there, he was quiet, preferring to go unseen.
It was a stance at odds with the look-at-me-look-at-me approach of many in boxing today, yet Williamson seemed only ever there โ in the changing room, in boxing โ to do a job. There to get paid, not seen. There because of his love of the game, not the limelight.
โI do love it and always have,โ Williamson said. โEven before I was working in boxing, I loved it. I came out of Bermondsey, so it was a regular thing. It wasnโt a case of, โWho is boxing?โ It was, โWhenโs the boxing?โ It was everywhere.โ
Though his own boxing career fell away, Williamson, like so many, stuck around. He stayed close to the late matchmaker Ernie Fossey โ someone he describes as a โvery blunt man who didnโt suffer foolsโ โ and progressed from doing house second work to cuts for undercard boxers. Even now he doesnโt really know how he ended up doing cuts, nor when it all officially begun, but he does know a Billy Schwer title fight was his first big assignment.
โAfter that I got the phone call from Rickyโs dad or Billy Graham,โ he said. โThey asked if I would do cuts for Ricky. The first fight I did for Ricky was Bernard Paul.โ
That was back in 1999. In the 20 years since, Williamson has earned a reputation as Britainโs finest cut man.
Remind him of this and he will say itโs not about him. He will suggest the focus should be on the two boxers in the ring, which, to some degree, is true. But, equally, there are occasions when the blood starts to run, a fight is in jeopardy and a fighter requires help. Itโs then Williamson finds himself beneath the one thing he has spent all night trying to avoid: the spotlight.
โWhat goes through my mind before a fight? Nothing,โ he said. โNormally Iโm just sitting there chatting to someone or having a wander about. Thatโs it. Itโs not my scene. I havenโt got any advice to offer.
โOnce youโve greased them in the changing room or in the corner before the fight, you go and sit there, nice and calm.
โI always wear a wristband. On that wristband Iโll have my three (swab) sticks and then Iโll have my gauze tucked the other side of the wristband.
โVirtually every round youโre dipping the sticks. After so long you chuck the stick away and use the next one. Youโll have that and a bit of grease on the back of your hand. With all that youโve got everything you need on one hand.โ
Like any expert, Williamson has a way of making an important job seem unimportant and a difficult skill seem easy, something we could all do. In his hands, itโs the humblest of skills, one to do not describe.
โNormally I donโt like getting in the ring,โ he said. โYou can do both sides of the cut without getting in the ring. If you try getting in the ring, your foot can get tangled on the rope in a panic, which has happened to me before, and you end up lurching in the ring.
โYou can do everything so long as you donโt get somebody who wants to be on the telly who starts interfering while youโre doing the cut. You do get a few like that in boxing, but most are fine.
โWhen youโre working with people like Joe Gallagher and Billy Graham, and plenty of others, your job is easy. Sometimes they say to me, โDo you want to get in?โ I say, โNo, thereโs no need. I can do it from here.โโ
Once in position, Williamson will then watch what he can of the fight. Often his view will amount to not much more than โJoe Gallagherโs arseโ but sometimes he gets lucky.
Some nights, too, there will be no need for Williamson to intervene. Some nights the boxer will also get lucky, which is to say, leave the ring blood-free.
โA good night for me has nothing to do with whether a boxer gets cut or not,โ he said. โA good night for me is getting paid on the night.
โIf theyโre not cut, theyโve done all right. The only issue is when they donโt get cut and ask for a discount. I then have to explain to them Iโm here in case they cut. Iโve had that before: โCan I pay you this amount because I didnโt cut?โโ
The unlucky ones, meanwhile, will feel it before they see it and gauge the severity of the cut from the faces of their cornermen, one of whom, Williamson, is well versed in giving nothing away. He will have assessed the cut, perhaps even foreseen it, and will be ready to act accordingly.
โItโs weird,โ he said. โWhen you see a cut, you donโt get stressed as much because youโre no longer waiting for it to happen. It has happened.
โYouโre tense in the corner, of course you are, but youโve just got a one-track mind at that point. Youโve got everything ready. You were expecting this.โ
Forget, at this point, any notion of good and bad cuts. There are no good ones, Williamson will stress, but the very worst, based on experience, are the cuts located just beneath a boxerโs brow. Those ones are on the bone, there is little room to work, and blood has a habit of running into the eye. The temptation then is to panic. The coach panics and the boxer, in turn, starts to panic.
Williamson, on the other hand, must apply pressure, not feel it.
โYou just want the corner to shut up and let you get on with it,โ he said. โIn the words of Ernie Fossey, โWhat are you worried about? Running out of blood?โ If you come at it from that angle, it more or less takes a little bit of the pressure off.
โSo long as you havenโt got a clown in the corner, youโre okay. The worst thing is when youโre putting adrenaline in and the trainer is washing it out with water because heโs panicking or wants to get on telly.โ
Williamson often recites another Ernie Fossey quote โ โgood referees make good cut menโ โ and finds comfort in the knowledge that if a fight is meant to continue, the fighterโs cut can and will be stopped. If it isnโt, if the cut is too bad, common sense will hopefully prevail and either the referee or trainer will be responsible for ending the fight.
โSome people have just got that type of skin, havenโt they?โ he said. โBone structure is the thing. Ricky [Hatton], God bless him, had those high cheekbones and they never helped.
โHis cuts against Thaxton would be up there with the worst Iโve had to deal with. So would the [Tony] Bellew fight [against Roberto Bolonti]. The rest of them I would consider run of the mill.
โIโve seen some terrible ones where Iโve not even bothered. As the referee walks him over, I just go, โNo, not happening.โโ
Unfortunately, not all cut men know what theyโre doing and not all referees know when to make the right call.
โWhen you get a cut, you put pressure on it, which means youโve got your fingers either side of the cut,โ Williamson said. โYouโre not squeezing it shut, youโre putting pressure on either side of the cut. But some people just get the towel and squeeze it shut. How do you then get the stick in?
โYou also get the other ones who get the swab stick and press it in like mad. What have you got in the cut? A piece of cotton wool. And youโve got the adrenaline running down his cheeks. That makes it even worse because as itโs running down itโs bloody, isnโt it? So that makes it look like even more of a mess. Itโs all common sense, isnโt it?โ
He paused to laugh. โI just like moaning.โ
Williamson also likes earning. Lucky for him, as Britainโs best he is often in demand.
โFor world title fights you can get a lot of money,โ he said. โSometimes you have a bond with a fighter and they look after you. But the money more or less stays the same. Some are a bit more thankful, cash-wise, than others, but you tell them what you want and youโll either get it or you wonโt.
โOther fighters give me money without me having to ask. They just give me money and Iโve kept my mouth shut. I have had some where Iโve thought, That was a bit over the top.โ
Though the jobs continued, one day the blood stopped.
Eighteen months ago, in fact, the supply of blood running to Mick Williamsonโs heart was blocked, leading to a myocardial infarction, otherwise known as a heart attack.
Since then the 72-year-old has stopped smoking and given up his day job as a black cab driver. But one thing he wonโt stop doing is lingering in corners and cleaning up the blood of boxers. It keeps them โ and him โ going.
โI had another mild heart attack recently, but these things happen now,โ he said. โIโm getting old. Things start breaking down. People ask me, โHow do you manage? Why do you keep doing the cuts?โ I tell them greed keeps me going.โ
You also sense boxing is in the blood.