He is on his feet and heading to the corner. Nothing fast, nothing easy, but he is moving. A shuffling, slurring, walking, talking, wonderful miracle.
But forget that for a moment, because he has. He just wants to do what he used to do so well, and that has put him on a mission to get to the speed ball.
With each uneven step he is being watched by a huddle of nine at the Peacock Gym, hidden down a few lanes on a stud farm in Epping. There is a recent British middleweight champion, a good featherweight and a coach who has witnessed his fair share, and they all want to see this.
Michael Watson is on a mission to help others overcome the odds after his miracle recovery
So they stare as he slowly ambles over to his target, this man once known to the world as ‘The Force’. He is limping to the left because that is part of his damage, but it is also useful for sending out that left hand, which he does to get the ball moving. It is not a clean hit, nor is the second or third. But the next one is and he glances it again to keep it going.
There is an art in working a speed ball, a dance of coordination and timing — you cannot just do it, but if you can, you do not forget. It is a boxer’s bike and this old boxer remembers.
Clack, clack, clack, and it is bouncing; clack, clack, clack, and so is he. It gets faster and the grin gets wider, and he is the peacock now, all feathers and show, and all just a few strides away from a poster of the other guy. Thirty years ago this September, would you believe it?
But forget that, too, because for these few seconds he has. He just wants to spin that ball until the mood takes him to introduce the right hand, and so he does, which causes our miracle to stagger backwards. Two men dart in to catch him, but he has steadied himself and he is loving that.
‘The Force is back,’ he shouts to his gallery, and they are going wild, so he raises his right fist, the one that floored the man from the poster, if only for a while. ‘The Force is back,’ he repeats. ‘The Force is back.’
He is waving and smiling and for a blink or two it is just about the most beautiful sight in the world.
Michael Watson shows off his skills on the speed ball at the Peacock Gym in Epping
Michael Watson is saying something extraordinary. The boxers are sweating away in the next room and he is on a couch talking about the night before, when he was remembering what it was like to be one of them.
He likes to remember that time in his other life and his way of remembering is to get on YouTube, so when he was at home alone in Chingford he put it on. The Chris Eubank fight. The second one. That one. The one that broke him. ‘I watch it three or four times a year,’ he says. He falls over the word ‘four’ but he gets up again, because that is what he does.
‘It reminds me of what I could do. I like to see The Force. When I watch it I see I am in total control of that fight and The Force is back. I boxed well. I was a good boxer.’
He was. Truly and brilliantly. That night and others and he remembers them all. Every little detail and punch, right up until the darkness fell on September 21, 1991. White Hart Lane. His third and last challenge for the world middleweight title. Thirty years.
He was magnificent for 10 and a half of those mad rounds, just as he was when he beat seven shades out of Nigel Benn in 1989 and likewise his first clash with Eubank, which convinced almost everyone in Earl’s Court there was a new world champion in town. Everyone except the judges. But that rematch, three months after the first, what a ride and what a righting of wrongs. Or nearly. So nearly.
That remarkable physique, those head slips, the relentlessness — this 26-year-old lad of Hackney was a blur. After three rounds the question was whether Watson could keep up such a pace, after four Eubank was cut above his left eye. After six Watson had not given Eubank a yard of breathing room, after 10 he was pulling clear for an amazing upset. But for the 11th.
The man once known to the world as ‘The Force' is still going strong at the age of 56
Three right hands and Eubank was finally down and almost done. As he got to his feet, there were 10 seconds left in the 11th round. Just 10. And then that incredible warrior pulled an uppercut out of hell and drilled it flush into Watson’s chin.
His head jolted off the second rope as he fell and though he retained enough consciousness to get to his corner, there was already a bushfire spreading through his brain. He went back out for the 12th but it was stopped quickly with Watson on stiff legs and barely able to protect himself. As the ring filled with loons and bedlam, it went unnoticed by the broadcasters that at 10.59pm, five minutes after the stoppage, Watson slumped to the canvas and into a coma that would last 40 days and 40 nights. Thirty years.
‘People might not understand why I want to watch that fight,’ Watson says. ‘But I watch and I’m happy.
‘He wasn’t hurting me in the slightest but then he did that punch. I remember it all. Nothing is missing until I was out. The last round all I wanted was to keep my hands up, get to the bell and win the title. I was so disappointed when they stopped the fight that my soul left my body.’
He pauses and it is nearly time for a break. We take a few of those, every 15 minutes or so, because that is how it has to be now. But before we do, he goes again. ‘I’m pleased with my performance. When I watch it I am the main man, I look good.’
For the briefest of moments it all feels desperately sad. But he is not and he does not want you to be, either. That is not his way because he has taught himself another.
‘I am blessed,’ he says, and the words hang in the air while his carer brings him a water and those strong, young fighters work towards their dreams a few yards away.
Michael Watson admits the 30th anniversary of the Chris Eubank fight will be emotional
The miracle is talking about resilience. About finding reasons and light in bad things. About a pair of episodes in his infancy that are not so well known and yet tie in with a lot.
The first concerns a tragic accident that happened to him and his younger brother, Jeff, and the second involves a fire. The point of both stories will become clear.
‘When I was a baby with Jeff, our pram got hit by a car,’ he says. ‘Jeff was badly hurt, paralysed, but I was OK.
‘My life could have been taken away many times. When I was seven I saw a fire start in my sitting room. I ran to my mum in the kitchen and she
