THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE is an extract from ‘Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing.’

“I have my days,” Micky Ward groaned.

He leaned back in his chair, his eyes momentarily rolling as he was asked to describe his symptoms.

Ward, from Lowell, Massachusetts, is one of boxing’s modern-day gladiators. He took part in a succession of Fight of the Year candidates in his long career, often drawing the crowd to its feet by dropping his hands and swinging for the fences trying to out-tough an opponent.

His strategy frequently worked, but it came at a cost.

The 53-year-old does not slur his words. He does not shuffle when he walks. In fact, he can still turn in a decent 5k time.

But he knows he has not come through the wars unscathed, and he has been told that, too. He was the straight-ahead gunslinger Harrison Martland, MacDonald Critchley, and the others warned would get damaged.

“There are some things like my memory,” he said. “Long term I could tell you first-grade things I remember. I couldn’t tell you yesterday, some things like that. Some things I can’t really see, but my wife tells me. If I don’t take my medicine, I get snappy. I get edgy and I didn’t have that years ago. I’m very sharp-tempered if I don’t take it. She will say to me, ‘Did you take your medicine today?’ and that’s what I hate. If I’ve forgotten to take it and she can tell. And I’ll snap, ‘Yeah I took the medicine,’ and then I’ll go and take it.”

He laughed at the lack of domestic bliss he inflicts upon his wife, Charlene, who has been by his side for almost two decades. She has seen a lot, including the bloodthirsty battles with Arturo Gatti that put an exclamation mark on his brutal career.

But there were so many fights, so many stories, so many wars that the Gatti trilogy did not even get a mention in the movie of Micky’s story, titled The Fighter, which is based on Ward’s life and stars Mark Wahlberg in the lead role. The film saw Christian Bale score an Oscar for his portrayal of Ward’s troubled brother, Dicky Eklund.

As Micky’s exciting career wound down, Chris Nowinski approached him from the Concussion Legacy Foundation and Ward underwent physical and neurological tests with Dr. Robert Cantu in Boston in 2005.

“He [Nowinski] knew I was a fighter, and he watched my fights and I believe he was a boxing fan. He’s a great guy, a sports guy, played football at Harvard, he’s a smart kid, he loves sport and he cares about people. And with me retiring from fighting and him probably knowing how many times I got hit, I guess he spoke to Dr. Cantu and said, ‘Let’s see if he has it [CTE symptoms].’ I took numerous tests, a lot of them, and it came back that I do.”

It is unlikely Ward will get better from here on out. The question is: how much worse will he become?

“Now they can’t tell how bad you have it until you’re dead and then they can go inside and look at your head and your brain,” Ward added. “That’s why I’ve donated my brain and part of my spine, so they can look at the effects of concussion.”

While he acknowledged the condition, he purposefully does not dwell on it. He is aware of what it may mean for Charlene and his daughter, Kasie. He knows it is something they will inevitably have to face together.

“No, I’m not scared,” he snapped when asked. Then he paused and thought about it a little longer.

“I’m not really joking about it, but I can’t take it too seriously. So I am and I ain’t. It is what it is. That’s why I try to stay healthy, work out, and try to stay busy, because once you go off the deep end and you’re doing drink and drugs, you know, it’s going to get worse and—boom. I don’t want to do that. I basically want to stay as I am.”

Then he goes on a roller coaster of memories, of hard fights and sometimes harder sparring sessions. He thought nothing of punishing brawls, biting down on his mouthpiece, and fighting fire with fire. It’s what he did, in the gym and in the prize ring. It’s what secured his legacy in the hearts of a generation of fight fans. He symbolised a pure fighting integrity that cannot be coached, taught, or paid for.

But it is why he finds himself where he is today, and why he is arming himself with as much knowledge about CTE as he prepares for his future. You would think if he could do things differently he would, and perhaps the grueling training wars would be minimised.

He has his own theories now, but he didn’t know any better back then. It was fight or spar regardless. Now he would not be so hasty.

“Everybody’s concussions are different,” he continued. “Some people suffer from headaches. Some people suffer from depression. Some people get tired. Some people get angry. Some people want to hurt you. Some people want to hurt themselves… Everybody’s symptoms are different.”

Ward admits he’s boxed and trained while suffering with head injuries and probably concussions.

“You’re not going to say you can’t spar,” he tried to rationalise. “They’re going to say, ‘You’re a pussy. You’re this or you’re that. Stop being a baby.’ I would go and spar sometimes with the worst headaches but I was too proud. I didn’t want to show pain or weakness. I was determined and I didn’t want anyone to think any less of me.”

Micky Ward attending the Los Angeles Premiere Of ''The Fighter'. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

What would he have done differently? “I think in the gym I would have mentioned it more,” he confessed.

“People ask me if I’d have fought any different. No. That was just me. The thing about it is there’s no way they can stop concussions in boxing. The only thing you can do is probably minimise the sparring. I used to like to spar hard. You know what I mean? Because in my mind if I didn’t get used to getting dazed then when you get hit in a fight—boom—you don’t know what to do. I used not to like it but I wanted to get that zing because I would know how to react and I wouldn’t be hurt. Some fighters, they pussyfoot around sparring and then they get hit in a fight and they’re like, ‘Whoa.’”

When asked why damage in the aftermath of boxing was not talked about much in the sport, he was unsure, but he thought it should be discussed. “It’s real, it’s happening,” Ward said.

“You can’t deny it because it’s proven with what it’s done to fighters, to football players, to soccer players, to wrestlers . . . People, because of money, want to turn the other cheek but it’s happening in sports right down to soccer where sometimes people are heading that ball at seventy miles per hour in the pros.

“But it starts with being a kid. What I believe, and I don’t know this for sure, but three minors [head injuries] is a major. Just getting stunned in the gym with a right hand or whatever, not hurt, just stunned, that’s a minor. I used to get those constantly. I don’t know how many of those I had. Full-blown I had a whole bunch, but the minors are the ones that you don’t think hurt but they still do damage. Then you’re going back and sparring again. And again.”

And again and again. Day in, day out. Fighters punch in at their office and they punch out. And then comes the fight.

Boxers rarely enter the ring 100%, even though they are supposed to have trained for a peak. They may have suffered injuries or issues in camp, they may be going through personal problems away from the ring, they might have the flu, they could be weight-drained. Anything. But they still do everything they can to hear the first bell. And when that sounds, they do everything they can to hear the final bell, unless they can get rid of someone beforehand.

Ward, whose blistering left hook to the body—rather than punches to the head—curtailed many a bout, was a tough man. Arguably too tough.

In a two-part career, he went from prospect to gatekeeper. Then, after a layoff, he returned as a veteran and a contender.

Regardless of what period you look at, he took a lot of abuse. He lost all seven rounds against Alfonso Sanchez before miraculously turning it around with a single body shot to finish the fight. Outweighed drastically by Mike Mungin, he somehow went the distance.

Then, after violent seesaw battles with Shea Neary and Emanuel Augustus, he went to war three times with Gatti. Their first fight is often referred to as the best fight ever—in any era or weight class. Ward won that on points over ten rounds, but Gatti started the rematch sharply, caught Ward with a shot around his ear that caused him to pitch into the corner turnbuckle in round three, and that was all Ward recalled for the rest of the night but he boxed on for a further seven rounds–making it predictably brutal for Gatti, too.

“I don’t really remember it,” he said. “I just knew I was in a fight. I knew at the time I was in a fight but I can’t really remember it. It was just instinct. Maybe that was because I’d sparred so hard, I was ready for it, and I was in such good shape that I was on autopilot.”

Ward was not right for as long as two months after that fight, and then they fought a decider. Again it was ferocious. The two friends ripped into one another. Gatti broke his hand on Ward’s hip. Ward floored Gatti with a huge right hand.

After 10 rounds and a few embraces in the ring post-fight, they wound up in beds next to one another in the hospital, laughing about their shared wars.

Ward did not box again following the third fight. Gatti did. Like Ward, Gatti was a thrill-seeker. His back catalogue of highlight-reel fights was even longer than Ward’s and as the Canadian’s career wound down, Ward first became part of his entourage and then, for Gatti’s final bout—a loss—his trainer.

It was a storybook ending for them both and secured their already well-established legacies. Rather than going down in history individually, they went down together.

Gatti died in mysterious circumstances in Brazil in 2009 and Ward was devastated. They should have grown old together, done speaking engagements as a pair, gone on autograph signings as a double act.

Now Ward goes to signings where half a picture will remain unmarked. But he still goes to events. His education when it comes to CTE means he no longer shrugs his shoulders when he sees a fighter struggling. He knows what’s happening.

“I see people at the Hall of Fame and I don’t even know if they’ve even been diagnosed and some of them can’t even speak a sentence, and I have it?” he asked rhetorically.

“Maybe mine is different [from] theirs. I have some things that they have and they have other things that I don’t have but you can’t see. I don’t have the speech but I have the headaches, the aggravation, and all the crap. Maybe they don’t get that.”

It doesn’t sound too scientific, in typical Ward fashion, but it’s accurate. He knows what he’s talking about. Yet when Ward goes to fighter gatherings and is invited to premieres and events it’s because people want to pay tribute to Micky Ward the warrior. As nice as Micky Ward the man might be, and as much as people appreciate him, it’s the warrior they want.

And with that in mind, there is nothing he would change. Regardless of what lies ahead, he would not change what will define him.

“That’s just me,” he said of his fighting style. “That’s who I am. That’s a priceless legacy to me. I fought the way I fought and I’d fight the same way again. Honestly. God has a plan for me, I believe, and it was to fight that way, to meet my wife, and it’s just his plan. I’m not a religious person but I do believe in Him, you know?”

Ward still works. Despite the big nights headlining on ESPN and on HBO, despite The Fighter [“Did it make you rich?” “I wish.”], he gets up and works for relatives paving roads. He has always done it, even through his fighting career.

There are no airs and graces about Micky Ward. There never have been, and that’s another priceless quality that has endeared him to his fans. Ultimately, when he gets up and leaves home to go to work, his life has not changed and neither has he.

He’s taking a break from training fighters in his Lowell gym because he’s been burned out by the sport. He sees fighters churned out by boxing and left on the scrapheap. 40 years old. No qualifications because they focused on fighting. No plan B. Damaged.

He argued that there should be a union in boxing, where perhaps if fighters take part in a certain number of championship rounds, they get a pension for the rest of their lives.

“The NFL has it, the NBA has it, MLB has it, NHL has it, boxing doesn’t have it,” he argued. “And when you’re done with boxing, it’s thank you and—boom—the door closes. There’s no pension plan for these guys and they put their lives on the line every time.”

Ward himself is staying on top of his medical treatment because he’s wary of what the future holds.

“I go [to his neurologist] once every few months and they test me and I get medicine every month,” he said.

“[Wife] Charlene and [daughter] Kasie know I have it. Charlene knows when I’m good, when I’m bad, when I’m not taking it. She knows. She can tell by my voice. Anyone else … You, Dicky … No one else would notice. I’ve told Kasie about it and once in a while it will come up. I’m staying healthy, eating clean, and not drinking as much… If you’re out partying or you’re soaking your brain with booze or whatever, I think that will make it worse. Or it could just get worse anyways. I don’t know.”

Some fighters have been reluctant to donate their brains to research, particularly the younger ones. Ward is not. Sincerity meets with dark humor when he speaks about it.

“I hope it helps the next generation of fighters, not only in boxing but contact sports in general, and it helps them to understand better the effects of concussion,” he said. “Really, I don’t know what it can help but if it can help in any kind of way that’s good.”

Is it a big sacrifice? “No” he replied. “They’re getting my brain. It will be like brand new, never been used! I haven’t used it in years.”

Ward chuckled but his eyes glazed softly and he went deep into thought. His future is uncertain, and he knows he has dependents that he might need to depend upon. Maybe in two years, maybe in twenty, but he hopes more boxers and their families will spearhead change and help sufferers while educating young boxers and trainers about steps they can take to improve their long-term chances.

But this is boxing. It is an old sport with a closed mind. It does not benefit any of the governing or sanctioning bodies to work together, to give up their territory or share of any revenue, even if it could help fighters enormously.

“You know what?” Micky said, hand on his chin in consideration while turning his head left and right. “Boxing has been this way since day one and it’s going to stay that way. Watch. It’s sad.”

‘Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing’ by Tris Dixon is published by Hamilcar Publications. More info here.