Trainer urged Williams against boxing comeback

Liam Williams has revealed his long-time trainer Gary Lockett discouraged him from making a boxing comeback.

Williams retired after a humbling first-round defeat by Hamzah Sheeraz in February 2024, citing fears over chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) after suffering "several concussions".

Last week the former world title challenger announced his comeback and has since told BBC Sport: "I feel like a new man."

"I wouldn't want to look back in a couple of years when it's too late and wish I had a couple more fights," said Williams.

But the 33-year-old's decision was not initially backed by his coach.

Lockett threw in the towel to save his fighter from further punishment against Sheeraz after he was put down twice in the opening round at London's Copper Box Arena.

Afterwards, he agreed with Williams' own assessment that he was "done".

Although the pair remained close, the former middleweight's return to Lockett's gym in Cardiff earlier this year was met with a cold shoulder.

"Gary didn't want to train me. He said: 'I'm not really interested'," Williams recalled.

"He told me I was a good friend, it's not just a boxer-coach relationship, and said 'I care about you dearly'."

Lockett's duty of care towards his fighter was unsurprising.

He saw first-hand the dangers of boxing, having been in Nick Blackwell's corner when he suffered a bleed on the skull against Chris Eubank Jr in 2016, which left him in an induced coma for more than two weeks.

Blackwell was also a stablemate of Williams.

"Gary said to me: 'Leave it alone. You have had some great nights, you have had a great career. You have got nothing else to prove, you can stay happily retired.'"

Like so many other retired fighters, Williams admitted he struggled to fill the void left after hanging up his gloves.

"It was [rubbish]. Life is great for a couple of weeks or months, then it's like 'is this it?'," he said.

"I have boxed since I was nine years old. It's in me. That's what I'm made for."

The Welshman convinced Lockett he still had something left to give in the sport by telling him to let his stable's best talents - which include ex-world champion Joe Cordina, European lightweight champion Gavin Gwynne and British title contender Rhys Edwards - try to knock him out in sparring. Now the pair are preparing to work together again.

"Things went very well, no one took my head off," said the man nicknamed 'The Machine', whose record stands at 25-5-1, with 20 wins via knockout or stoppage.

"I feel a bit of a break has done me the world of good."

Williams revealed he suffered multiple concussions before retirement, including one three weeks before facing Eubank Jr, when he was floored four times.

"If you go and have another concussion you can drop dead. That was a bit of an idiot move from me [fighting Eubank Jr], but me being a fighter I thought I could still do it," he said.

"I was losing too much weight. That last week, losing the best part of a stone in the 12 to 18 hours before the weigh-in, it's a big ask to recover from that.

"I was standing on the scales thinking, 'I'm going to fall over'."

After those struggles to make the 11st 6lbs (160 lbs) middleweight limit, Williams did not rule out a repeat at that weight but was intending to return eight pounds heavier at the "safe option" of super-middleweight.

Despite his new lease of life, thoughts of CTE remain on his mind.

"It always has been because I have got children which I have to think about," he said.

"It was much more of a worry at this point two years ago. Now I've got my stuff together and I'm doing things right.

"I feel much healthier than I was back then, head and body. I have had a number of brain scans and everything is checking out."

Williams insisted he was also in a much better frame of mind than during the period when he fought Sheeraz and had won back the trust of his coach after four months back in training.

"We've had a couple of chats, he says 'I'm happy, you are looking good'," said Williams.

"I'm at that stage now where I'm ready for something to be announced."

So what can the boxing world expect from a man who won British, European and Commonwealth titles the first time round?

"I've come back for the same reason I was in boxing before. Winning a world title would be the one. Realistically I don't know if I will get back there," he said.

"The goal is just to be in the biggest fights possible. I'm not planning this being a five-year comeback, I'm going to go a fight at a time.

"If things are going great then we will have longer. If things aren't going great, it won't be that long.

"I have got a lot more to give and I know I can prove a lot of people wrong."