“I feel like I’ve got too much empathy sometimes,” Shane McGuigan says, sat across the hallway. We’re at his gym in Leyton, speaking just outside the main room in which his boxers draw up their pugilistic plans and prepare to execute them come fight night. “I know the long-lasting effects of brain trauma. It’s terrible to see certain fighters suffer brain injuries and potentially even pass away because of fights. If I ever had one of them, pfft, I’d be out the door. I wouldn’t be coaching again.”
An automatic ceiling light intermittently dims, with McGuigan occasionally waving his arm gently to shed even more light on the topic at hand. In this moment, it is fighter health.
