A doctor's note: 'Somehow, Mr O’Sullivan managed to fight and win two weeks after suffering this injury'

A STRETCH: ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan punching his way to a comeback - if painful - victory at the National Stadium over Mateusz Pawlowski. Pic: Laszlo Geczo, Inpho

Last month at the National Stadium, I sat down on my stool between rounds and thought to myself “they’re going have to have someone come in here and sweep the ring between rounds!” 

It wasn’t because the canvas was crimson with the spills of battle. No. It was my bloody shorts. They were disintegrating with every step I took, threads and fluff and bits of fabric floating down.

If you were watching from more than a few rows back they apparently looked fine. And there’s a lesson in that: appearances can be deceiving. In our sport where keeping up appearances is half the battle, I can now let ye in on something — it wasn’t just my shorts that were proper f***ed. I was too.

I fought six rounds with Mateusz Pawlowski with a detached bicep in my left arm. I know that now because I’m three weeks post-surgery and still learning to live life using just my right arm.

I knew I was in trouble as soon as the injury happened 15 days before the fight. I just didn’t realise how bad it was. But there were signs.

Take the shorts for starters. I have a lovely flashy pair that are probably my favourites above in the attic. I had planned to wear them for what was my first fight in 18 months and first in Dublin in 11 years. But there was no way I could go up to the attic and root around, shifting boxes because the arm was in agony. So I made do with the auld pair that, like myself, were coming apart at the seams.

Since the doctors stitched me back together, I’ve had friends and colleagues tell me I’d be mad to reveal a brutal injury like this. Any future opponent now knows where I’ve been damaged. But I’m a 41-year-old who’s spent most of his life fighting. There’s damage everywhere. I also don’t give a toss what people know or think. I came through one of the most excruciatingly painful nights of my life with a win that will live with me forever. It was my first in front of my children and I’m surer than ever it won’t be the last.

The bicep went in the same situation where a lot of things go awry — sparring. I was working with Packie and felt something go south but couldn’t have imagined how bad it would be. I turned southpaw and sparred on for three more rounds. Packie is half a lunatic himself with a crazy pain barrier and he’d never ask you do anything you wouldn’t do yourself. I’m probably three-quarters lunatic so wasn’t going to let it stop me.

It was giving me serious bother in the final two weeks before the fight, especially when we shot over to Atlantic City for their Boxing Hall of Fame inductions. The day before the fight at the weigh-in was the first time I realised it may, in fact, be very bad. We did our usual flex for the cameras and when I looked at the photos there was nothing to flex, my bicep had sagged down to the bottom of my arm.

Still I ploughed on. I went in there with a plan. I was going to take it handy, tip around out of trouble and avoid using the left at all. Then the adrenaline kicked in, the smell of sweat and tension came roaring up through the nostrils and everything went out the window. The bicep may have been bollocksed but muscle memory took over anyway. I went right at Pawlowski and even threw a couple of early lefts. The sharpest pain of my life shot down from the upper arm through the wrist and filled the glove on my left hand. Torture.

I never winced. Because if I did, he would have known and we were now firmly in ‘nobody can know’ territory. My brain shot back to the plan: I had to hit him f***ing hard with the right. I know I still have plenty of power in that hand and I lit him up with two massive rights that landed somewhere. I didn’t even care where, just that they landed. He smiled. Rookie mistake. I knew I’d hurt him. After that, I managed to work my feet like I’d hoped and avoided trouble. After six rounds I got my right arm raised but the left was pulsing like mad. My friend, ironically a doctor, forgot and when he went to congratulate me gave my left arm a squeeze. I nearly passed out.

Some lads who know me well and have watched me plenty came up and said I was “like a new man in there! Why didn’t you dance like that in your 20s?” The reason was because this was a fight where I had two feet but one arm so I had to use what I’d more of.

I went in to see Dr. Joe Jordan, a gentleman, a few days after the fight. The MRIs told him all he needed to know and I was quickly referred to another gent, Dr. David Morrissey, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon who specialises in elbows and shoulders. We’re blessed to have these kind of people around us in Cork and all across the country and need to remind ourselves of it.

The diagnosis was a ruptured left distal biceps and a retracted tendon. Dr. Morrissey’s official medical note contains the following words: “Somehow, Mr. O’Sullivan managed to fight and win two weeks after [suffering] this.” I was booked in for the op in Cork University Hospital exactly five and a half weeks after it happened. Turns out six weeks is the latest after the original injury occurring that distal biceps tendon repair surgery can be done. Not like me to cut something fine.

I’d never been intubated or under general anaesthetic but off I went. I was filled in on what happened in there and listen, my medical knowledge isn’t the best either but here’s my understanding of it. They’d shaved my leg because there was one plan that they may use some muscle from the hamstring to fix things in the bicep. But when they opened up the arm they realised the bicep was fully ruptured so there was nothing to anchor off. Think of it this way: instead of being able to fuse two short pieces of wire with a little extra from the leg, there was only one dangling piece of wire, essentially. Although I’m not an electrician either to be fair.

Instead they drilled through the bone in my radius, hollowed it out and put an anchor in there to reattach everything. I was surprised to wake up with a hefty cast on but mostly relieved.

The whole team in CUH were incredible. Dr. Morrissey was delighted with how it went. When I first met him he’d said he wanted to get me back to 99%. I told him that would bloody amazing because I haven’t been 99% since I was a child. I’ve operated at 85% for about a 15 years now. If he gets me north of 90% he’s an actual miracle worker.

I’ll be back in with them the week before Christmas for my next check-up but I’m doing my best to follow his instructions and keeping it in the sling 24/7. I was at the Aviva last week and if I can celebrate Ireland’s football miracles with just one arm raised I reckon I can make most things work.

The timeline from here is three to six months of recovery. I’ve already been approached about a potentially big fight Stateside in May or June, maybe just in time to catch the Boys in Green at the World Cup.

Any future opponent will now know what I’ve been through but I couldn’t give a continental f***. Here’s more info for them: before my loss to Sofiane Khati in Castlebar last year I badly damaged four ribs and could barely move. Should I have fought through the pain that night? Maybe not. But I am who I am. My children saw me lose that night but then saw me win with one arm on a night when I’m almost certain I was the oldest professional boxer from Ireland ever to be licensed to fight here.

So I won’t be stopping any time soon. I still believe I can be a world champion. I have all of the experience in the world, the strength, the desire and the want. I have the lunacy as well. And once everything is healed I’ll have a new bicep to swing that left again.

So if you see me in the street over the Christmas please do me a favour and don’t ask me when I’m going to call it a day. I’m my own man and I’m going nowhere. And here, don’t be asking what Santy is bringing me either. That’s already sorted. I just hope me one shaved leg will look good in the new pair of shorts that are coming.