Boxer John Cooney, who suffered a brain injury during a bout at the Ulster Hall on Saturday, is “not ready to leave this world” and is in “the hardest fight of his life”, his mother said on Tuesday.
Mr Cooney remains in intensive care in the Royal Victoria Hospital after suffering the injury during his Celtic super featherweight fight against Welshman Nathan Howells.
His mother Tina, in a message on social media, said she will “never give up hope” on a son she loves unconditionally.
“Right now you are breaking my heart in a million pieces,” Ms Cooney said. “But you are not ready to leave this world yet and you are now battling the hardest fight but you can do this John Cooney.”
The Galway man, who has trained in Belfast, suffered an intracranial haemorrhage to his brain. A GoFundMe fundraising campaign had raised close to £10,000 by Tuesday evening.
Manager Mark Dunlop said the boxer remains in a “very, very critical condition” and that the next 24 hours will be crucial to his recovery.
“He is a fit young man and it is in God’s hands,” Mr Dunlop said, adding that the 28-year-old underwent surgery to relieve the pressure from the bleed on his brain.
Mr Dunlop described the bout as evenly matched before the bell, one that was presumed to go the full distance. His fighter had the upper hand in the earlier stages but then Mr Howells started to “pull away”.
The manager did hear the referee tell Mr Cooney the fight would be stopped if he did not “show more”. The fight ended with a technical knock out in the ninth round.
Questioned over whether the fight should have been stopped earlier, Mr Dunlop said the fighter’s corner may have questioned why the bout continued as Mr Cooney was falling so far behind.
“But they know the fighter better than me,” he added.
Former boxing world champion Carl Frampton told the BBC the injuries suffered Mr Cooney are “horrible” and that “his heart goes out” to the boxer and the family.
“It is one of the downsides of the sport, a sport that can be very brutal at times,” the Belfast ex-boxer said.
Mr Frampton said he expected, after his long career at the top level of the sport, to suffer from dementia or some other type of brain injury in the future.
