Jack Rafferty and Mark Chamberlain shared 12 torrid rounds and, long after the final bell, Rafferty shared pictures of the aftermath, showing him curled up in a ball in a hospital bed.
He was wearing a gown, ghostly pale, and the rippling muscles of fight day had vanished, replaced by lean, trim but weak-looking limbs.
“It was a week after the Chamberlain fight,” Rafferty explained. “I fell ill, started off with a bad stomach and things got worse and worse. I rang my wife at the end of the week and said, ‘I can’t deal with this.’”
Within an hour, Rafferty was in hospital and had been diagnosed with an ischaemic bowel. The doctors told him: “It’s bad.”
“How bad?” Rafferty asked.
“We have to take you to surgery now,” they told him.
Rafferty had to undergo an emergency operation to have part of his bowel removed.
Pictures (top) courtesy of Queensberry Promotions and, above, Jack Rafferty via Instagram
Just a few short months later, he stopped the highly regarded Ekow Essuman and now – on Saturday in Manchester – fights for the IBO welterweight title.
It has been a torrid journey for the 31-year-old Manchester-born fighter, who now boasts a 27-0-1 (18 KOs) record.
He was in hospital for 10 days in all. Then he was released and got married two days later, in a wedding that had, of course, been on and off for several days.
“Listen, if I’m getting wheeled down in a wheelchair down the hall, I’m going,” he said.
“This day’s not changing.”
He had to get his suit tailored down a size or two because of his weight loss, but he made it. And in May, he made it back into the ring.
“That was well behind me,” he said of his ill health as he headed into the fight with Essuman. “I wouldn’t have been in there, my team or no one – especially my dad – wouldn’t have let me be in there. And I had plenty of training, breaking myself back into it, and then a good performance.”
Sadly for Jack, he was no stranger to hospitals. He has routinely paid tribute to his mum, XX, who passed away from cancer in XXX, and dedicated his biggest wins to her memory. And while he might not be the biggest fan of hospitals, he has nothing but respect for those who work there.
“Thank God for them as well, you know. You don’t realise how good the NHS is until one of your family members are in there, or even yourself,” he said.
“So, thank you to them. They’re massively overrun and they get a lot of stick, but once you’re using them, thank God they’re there.”
*
Rafferty has been on quite the run, claiming the scalps of the likes of Henry Turner, Reece MacMillan and Cory O’Regan.
Known as the “Demolition Man”, he has shown different sides to his game, including going to war with Chamberlain.
“I hope I’m entertaining,” he said. “That’s what we’re in, the entertainment business, and [promoter] Frank [Warren] said, ‘As long as you’re dancing, I’ll give you the platform to dance’, and I must be dancing not too bad.”
Many felt his bout with Essuman was hard to call, but Rafferty did his work early and bloodied and stopped “The Engine” in six rounds in a contest that was deemed all but 50-50.
“Unfortunately, that’s what everyone wanted, a bloodbath, which, apart from the fans watching it, it’s no good for your boxing career,” Rafferty admitted. “There’s a time and a place for a bloodbath and what people are expecting, but that’s what I can do, I can box, I can move and I could do a few more other things, and that [a war] is what he wanted. He wanted to be up close and personal and sometimes you can’t give your opponent something they want. He wasn’t expecting me to move and be rangy and I just don’t think he was ready for that.”
