Nathaniel Collins on his road from life-saving surgery to world title brink
The most famous picture of Nathaniel Collins, the undefeated Scottish southpaw, is not of him in a boxing ring, hands aloft after one of his 17 professional wins.
Nor is it the 29-year-old holding any of the British, Commonwealth or Celtic featherweight titles he has claimed across his career so far.
Instead, it is a photograph of Collins lying in a hospital bed, multiple tubes in his nostrils, IV drips in each arm and a huge, dressed wound running vertically down his abdomen.
It was early May last year when Collins emerged through 12 arduous rounds against Francesco Grandelli at York Hall in Bethnal Green. He headed back to Scotland but there was no time for him to put his feet up and rest.
The gym he owns, Nightmare Fitness, was proving to be exactly that as, around the same time his hand was raised aloft to confirm his victory in east London, there was a leak.
“After my fight, I went back up the road,” said Collins. “I got to my gym, and there’s water everywhere, and my nose is all broken. I was pure stressed out.
“My body was shattered, because I’d had this war with Grandelli, then I’ve got to sort out a leak, and I’m running around all over the place. I think there was just a mix of those things that put too much stress on my body.”
That lethal combination would manifest in unbearable abdominal pain and full body convulsions so severe he was rushed to hospital. There, experts identified that, at some point over the weekend, he had suffered a potentially fatal twisted bowel.
On Monday, May 21, he underwent an emergency operation with surgeons working for more than eight hours to rectify the problem and save the boxer’s life. Then, two days later, along with a caption explaining his radio silence, Collins posted the photo in question.
“I just think it would have been really, really easy for me to feel sorry for myself at that point,” Collins said when asked to reflect on the situation.
“It would have been easy to just give up and then spend my life saying, 'I could have done this and that, but I couldn’t because of this injury.' For me, as soon as it was done, there’s no going back and no point crying over spilt milk. Move on.
“People touch on it a lot, and when I hear the words coming out of their mouth, I do realise that it was quite a big deal. But for me, it was just another year in the life for me.”
Although Collins downplays the severity of the injury, which doctors do not think was necessarily linked directly to the fight 48 hours earlier, he does accept that the turnaround since surgery has been almost beyond belief.
At one point, his life, never mind his career, was in stark danger. Now, 17 months later, Collins will headline Braehead Arena in Glasgow for the first time as he takes on Cristobal Lorente for the European featherweight title live on DAZN.
Following surgery, he spent nine months out of the ring before returning with a solid, yet unspectacular points victory over 8-26-2 Darwing Martinez in their eight rounder. Then, around three months later, Collins produced the best win of his career to date, scything down once-beaten compatriot Lee McGregor inside four rounds. That victory came just one year and three days after his life-saving surgery.
“When I was lying in that hospital bed, there is no chance I would believe what I would achieve relatively quickly,” he said.
“I would never have thought any of that was going to happen. And it was funny, because I’d just had my fight which was for the European silver title, but my opponent didn’t bring the belt to the fight.
“So I won the fight but never got the belt. When I was in hospital, I couldn’t even walk to the toilet. I still had tubes and wires and everything sticking out of me, so I couldn’t even walk.
“But then my coach came up, and he brought that belt with him. They’d sent the belt out, and he brought it to the hospital. For me it was just a moment that I needed. That belt doesn’t really matter much now, but back then it got me back up and walking. That was the wee boost I needed to get up and stop feeling sorry for myself.”
That he has the chance to turn that silver title gold against Cristobal (20-0-2, 8 KOs) feels appropriate.
“Most definitely,” Collins said. “It is unfinished business for me. And also the fact it is a world title eliminator is important for me, because that’s where I want to be. That's why I’m in killer mode now.”
Collins is currently The Ring’s No.10-ranked featherweight, but at the very top of the division there is a scramble to decide who is the No.1. There is currently a different champion in each sanctioning body as well as two interim beltholders and one "champion in recess".
Collins is No.1 with the WBC, but Rey Vargas is in recess, Bruce Carrington is the interim champion while the full champion Stephen Fulton is headed to 130 pounds to fight O’Shaquie Foster later this month.
“It’s not ideal at the top of the WBC to be honest,” Collins said. “But I can’t really worry about that. The WBC is the belt I want the most, so I just need to keep winning and make sure I’m in position should a chance come my way.
“That carries on against Lorente, and I’m not planning on letting it slip now.”
