Joe Gallagher is back in the corner following battle with cancer: "It's been an emotional journey"

Joe Gallagher is winning the biggest fight of his career

It's been a long and bumpy road for Joe Gallagher, who is officially back in the gym following his fight with cancer. 

The esteemed Manchester coach was diagnosed with stage four bowel and liver cancer, and after intensive chemotherapy and a major operation, he is now back doing what he does best.

 "It's been an emotional journey for the 10 months, I've gone through the full cycles of chemo, had a stent fitted that had migrated and gone missing at times," Gallagher relayed to Sky Sports in an exclusive interview.

"Those little battles along the way that take anything you have.

"Coming through all that and staying positive."

Gallagher, who has coached numerous British stars - including Natasha Jonas - put off his final operation so he could coach Lawrence Okolie to a career-saving win on the Oleksandr Usyk vs Daniel Dubois undercard. 

"It was on the Saturday night. Monday morning, I was at the hospital giving blood and on Tuesday morning I was in and under the knife," Gallagher stated.

"I was quite overwhelmed and quite emotional because of the magnitude of the operation at the time.

After a remarkable recovery, the coach was back in the corner during the Terence Crawford vs Canelo Alvarez fight week, to coach Mikie Tallon to a midweek win over Christian Robles in Las Vegas. 

"Then seven weeks later, to be stood there with Mikie Tallon weighing in in Las Vegas… I was really glad that I got there for Mikie, I pushed myself to get better.

"I got a phonecall, telling me the good news and the next morning we were on the way to Vegas. It was touch and go, they gave me permission to fly. From Wembley to Vegas and what went on in between, I could write a book on it."

While he’s now back with his fighter, he acknowledges that his battle is far from over. 

"Your body's still repairing and still recovering, you've just had massive surgery. 

"I've got to build up my recovery levels again, although I am here [at the gym] there's still a lot of repairing going on inside of me.

"People have said to me, once you come through this, you'll be a different person. At the moment I feel like you can't waste time, you can't waste days.

"There's still goals I want to achieve, there's still dreams for my fighters that I want them to achieve, their goals.

"I'm ready for a big push now up to Christmas with everyone I've got fighting."