Traumatic Brain Injuries And Boxing: The Silent Epidemic

Looking at mainstream press coverage of traumatic brain injuries and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma, you would be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t a big problem in boxing. Coverage mainly focuses on the plight of American football players, and even Hollywood has taken a bite of this growing awareness, in the shape of the 2015 film Concussion, starring Will Smith.

CTE affects the brain, causing problems such memory loss, confusion, slowness of movement, impulse control and extreme rage. Because CTE can sometimes take years to manifest, it’s often misdiagnosed – when diagnosed at all. However, boxing is often surprisingly omitted from conversations about CTE, even though the sport has had numerous high-profile causalities and infamous incidents, like the one during Barry McGuigan’s 1982 fight with Young Ali that left Ali in a coma from which he never recovered.

In late 2015, Hamzah Aljahmi died in Ohio following his debut professional bout. In 2016, Scottish boxer Mike Towell died after a match in Glasgow, and English boxer Nick Blackwell was forced to retire after sustaining a head injury during a fight. Canadian MMA fighter Tim Hague suffered a brain haemorrhage after being knocked out by Adam Braidwood on June 16, 2017, and died two days later. And earlier this year, British boxer Scott Westgarth died aged just 31 after being rushed to hospital after winning a fight against Dec Spelman.

Thankfully, though, awareness about CTE is increasing with the sport, and has been further highlighted by Paddy Considine’s powerful new film Journeyman. Considine – who also writes and directs – takes the lead role as Matty Burton, a champion boxer who sustains a traumatic brain injury during a fight, and finds his personality and intellectual abilities forever altered. The film becomes a portrait of Matty’s struggles, shared by his wife Emma, played beautifully by Jodie Whittaker.

It’s a boxing movie that isn’t really about boxing – just as Considine wanted.

“I think the best sports movies aren’t really about the sports, but the people involved in them,” he says. “And I’m not really moved by too many boxing movies. I mean, Rocky’s amazing, Raging Bull’s a masterpiece, but it’s like anything – if I want to make a film, why would I tell a story that has already been told?”

Journeyman thus becomes a far more intimate and distressing tale, focusing on the aftermath of Matty’s fight, exploring how his bouts of rage, his memory loss and his lack of impulse control affect his life and the lives of his wife and daughter. Considine shows how Matty veers from being childlike and helpless, unable even to remember how to make a cup of tea, to vicious and violent, lashing out at his wife and daughter when he’s frustrated.

But surprisingly, the film isn’t overtly critical of boxing, despite Considine’s heartbreaking portrayal of Matty’s struggles after his injury. The director has long been a fan of boxing, but he says the film remains relatively uncritical not because he’s trying to protect the sport, but because he has seen and respects the attitude boxers themselves hold.

“I’ve been a boxing fan and I’ve seen ring accidents happen,” says Considine. “The obvious one is Michael Watson against Chris Eubank, and I remember thinking even then, what happens when the crowds are gone and the doors close and it’s up to the fighter and their family to deal with the effects of an injury, alone? That’s where the story started to form for me.”

Indeed, the qualities that Matty had as a boxer are shown to be the things that help him get his life back on course, as he reunites with his old trainers and starts on a new training regime to give him a sense of purpose and control. A beautiful scene also sees him meet the fighter who injured him – and express no blame.

“You find that a lot, when accidents do happen, there’s very little blame,” Considine reveals. “The fighters that inflict the damage often carry the guilt but there’s a lot of forgiveness for them, because it’s part of that unspoken deal that these men go into that arena and there’s always the risk of someone getting hurt, and I wanted to explore that. When I was a photography student in the 90s, I used to photograph a lot of old boxers with lumps and bumps and scars, and they were meeting with old foes from years before – but there was so much affection there. Because no-one else will ever understand what it’s like to be a ring fighting each other. There’s an intimacy and a shared experienced there that’s almost like a spiritual exchange. That’s something I picked up even then, of that there’s such a sense of community there.”

The role of Matty is a hard and beautiful one, as this formerly articulate and independent man is reduced to childlike abilities and frustration with his inability to remember his life or express himself. Considine is stunning in the role, though he tells me he was reluctant to act in his own film, due to some surprising insecurities.

“I didn’t want to play it!” he asserts. “I already had Jodie cast, I wrote the part for her, but I didn’t want to be in it. I said early on that I’d never direct myself. And I also felt like I was done with acting, I felt like I was a better manager than I was player. Creating a world and writing it and bringing it to life felt much less vulnerable than acting, because you sort of control the outcome. Writing and directing a film, it’s your baby, in a way. With acting, there’s still a massive amount of insecurity that goes with it. So I tried to harness every excuse – I’m too old, I’ve injuries, I’m not suited. But eventually, I realised that if someone else came to me with this role, I’d do it. It was just the fear of thinking could I act and direct and do all these things. But I realised it’s just that voice in my head that doesn’t feel worthy and is always telling me I’m not good enough. So I had to say ‘Fuck it!’”

It may surprise many people to learn that Considine feels unsure of his own talent, but the actor has spent a long time feeling uncomfortable in his own skin. It wasn’t until 2011 that Considine was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, the developmental disorder that is characterised with difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication. I ask Considine whether his experience with Asperger’s helped him relate to Matty’s struggles when he loses his sense of intellectual and emotional fluency.

“You have to tread a line of caution, because of course you don’t want to relate what you’re doing to having a brain injury, because I’m just an actor at the end of the day,” he says thoughtfully. “But you can feel pretty trapped in yourself sometimes, and that’s one of the discomforts that I have to deal with everyday. A lot of that frustration and anxiety of feeling scared or not understanding everything or feeling almost like your head’s underwater, that felt close.”
“
And I’m very mild,” he continues, speaking of his diagnosis, “but there are traits within there. And some of those frustrations of feeling trapped at times were definitely there. I was working through some of my own stuff while making this film, and I’m a great believer in channelling the energy that builds up in you, the discomfort or difficulties, into a platform on which to tell a story. I have a friend who says ‘You take this stuff and turn it into gold’, and I strive to do that. To take the discomfort that I feel, shed some light on it, and turn it into something worthwhile.”

Journeyman is in cinemas from March 30.