By Elliot Foster

Nick Blackwell has regained consciousness after doctors told his family he might never wake up after an ill-advised sparring session.

The former British middleweight champion, who was put into an induced coma in March after collapsing following a defeat at the hands of Chris Eubank Jr., was forced to give up boxing in the wake of that incident.

But Trowbridge man Blackwell didn’t heed the warning and stepped into the ring for a four-round sparring session in November. He was taken ill and forced back into hospital where he was put into another coma.

After the first incident, the 26-year-old made a full recovery and although he was forced out of the ring as a fighter, the British Boxing Board of Control gave him a trainer’s licence, enabling him to train fighters and work in the corner with his own former trainer Gary Lockett among others.

This time, though, the outlook was much more bleak. His family were told that he may not wake up and if he did there was a good chance he would be paralysed.

Doctors removed part of his skull to relieve the pressure from a brain bleed after the sparring session and it was revealed on Thursday night that he had defied the odds once more.

"A few days ago we had the Christmas miracle we've been wanting so badly to happen,” his friend Chantelle Spong wrote on Facebook.

"We walked into the hospital expecting to see Nick staring blankly at us but instead he was watching telly and really trying to get words out to talk to people now that his breathing ventilator has been taken out completely.

"He looks just like himself again and is very smiley.

"We knew he could hear us talking to him when he was asleep and this is the one thing we kept saying - 'just wake up before Christmas'.

"He's still got a very long way to go to recover to his full potential but we know he will do it."

Blackwell sparred with Hasan Karkardi on that fateful day and the fighter and his trainer, Liam Wilkins, have been suspended by the British Boxing Board of Control.

"We don't know what was going through Nick's mind at the time,” Spong continued, “but we do know boxing was Nick's life and full-time job for 10 years.

"It was all he ever knew and it got ripped away from him. If Nick thought for one second that he didn't feel 100 per cent, we know in our hearts he would of never stepped foot in that ring to spar.

"His family and friends are his world and we know he never wanted us to go through this again but he genuinely thought he was at full health."

The news of Blackwell waking up from his coma comes just hours after former foe Chris Eubank Jr. described his decision to step back in the ring as “madness.”

Further details regarding Blackwell’s recovery will be revealed in due course.