Liam Wilson, only a few months ago, was still falling over, nauseous, and completely bewildered, in the middle of the night.

Why?

Poor bugger had no idea.

BOXING | SUN AUG 23: Nikita Tszyu, with an unbeaten record, faces Jack Brubaker, seeking redemption after a past defeat to Tim Tszyu. Plus, Liam Wilson takes on undefeated world number 13 Carlos Alanis. ORDER ON MAIN EVENT ON KAYO SPORTS >

Yet more than once, this Next Big Thing of Australian boxing – and a fella who last fought for the WBO super featherweight title, no less – would get out of bed for a drink, a toilet trip, whatever, and … thwack, down he went.

Worse too, was how these falls, and more, had been plaguing Wilson, terrifying him, for the best part of seven months.

With his first tumble, the fighter admits now, coming way back in January.

When living out of a small Airbnb flat in Washington DC, Wilson and his tight-knight team were just four weeks out from what was to be his first world title fight against Mexican superstar Emanuel Navarrete.

Which is the one part of this story you’ve likely already heard, right?

With the entire boxing world aware of how Wilson, that fateful night in Glendale, Arizona, suffering one of the greatest robberies in Australian sports history when he not only threw down with Navarrete, or dropped him in the fourth – and for the first time in the Mexican’s life — but then stood, watching on, through what was supposed to be referee Chris Flores counting to 10.

Yet instead, Navarrete grabbed hopelessly for the ring ropes, then hopelessly again, before clambering up, spitting his mouthguard, an obvious stalling tactic to everyone bar Flores, who replaced it, only upside down, so then replaced it again, before finally confirming that, yeah, the fighter dubbed Vaquero, Spanish for ‘Cowboy’, was sweet to continue.

By which time, and our count, had blown waaaaaaay out to 28 seconds.

Even now, six months on, Wilson maintains that while nobody was wearing balaclavas that night inside the Desert Diamond Arena, still he was robbed.

Saying publicly, and more than once, how when Navarrete fell to the canvas for that first time in his career, grabbing for the ropes, and with eyes “that were f…ed”, he would never have survived had that count been legitimate.

But as for his own, worrying tumbles to the deck?

Wilson has spoken of them to almost nobody.

“Because I thought I had a brain injury,” he says now, referencing what has become half a year of intermittent falls, dizziness and nausea.

A run of dramas so worrying that his return fight next Wednesday night, in Sydney … well, it was going to be his last.

“Yeah, I was retiring next week,” Wilson reveals now, kicking back and chatting with Fox Sports Australia.

“I’d already had the conversation with Courtney, my partner.

“I said because of the falls and not knowing what was wrong with me, not knowing if there really was something wrong with my head, I couldn’t put her and the kids through it anymore.

“I told her ‘let me tough through one more fight … then I’m done’.”

Set to make his hyped return on No Limit’s latest Australian Pay-Per-View at the Hordern Pavilion next Wednesday – and as the co-main to undefeated Sydneysider Nikita Tszyu – Wilson has finally opened up on the ongoing battle which, after spending months covered in more question marks than The Riddler, was finally, and only recently, diagnosed as a serious case of vertigo.

In his first fight back since that famed Navarrete bout, the Queenslander faces undefeated Argentine Carlos Maria Alanis (12-0), with a win putting him right in the frame for a world title rematch.

A do over which carries far more weight now given not only what happened in the ring that night against Navarrete, but the entire month prior.

So badly was Wilson impacted during preparations against the Mexican – which started after being hit hard on the ear during training – he was left in tears and consulting concussion specialists.

In the practice room, he was forced to stop sparring for a fortnight. And even when he took it up again, decided never to spar beyond 10 rounds.

Oh, yeah … Wilson also thought he may die in the ring against Mexico’s now three-division champ.

But still, the 27-year-old fought anyway.

Same as after returning home, this gutsy Caboolture product again signed on for what was to be his return fight on the Tim Tszyu versus Carlos Ocampo undercard — only for those bouts of dizziness, nausea and night time falls to resurface.

“I was scheduled to fight on the Tszyu/Ocampo card in June but, during sparring, got hit again on the ear,” he reveals. “I went home for a rest, which is when all the symptoms started coming back.

“That’s the reason I pulled out of that fight.

“I knew I was in the prime of my career, but with a young family, two kids, I just thought ‘f…, I’m done’.”

But Wilson, he isn’t done.

Which is some yarn.

And one first revealed, in part, this past week when, as part of his build up for the Alanis showdown – and what, with a win, could be an immediate Navarrete rematch – the fighter visited Fox Sports studios and, alongside Main Event’s Ben Damon, rewatched those nine world title rounds for the first time in full.

And it was here, during that viewing, where Wilson first revealed just how compromised he had been before not only the biggest fight of his career, but a rival who, at the time, boasted as many title appearances as he did fights.

Explaining to Damon how, around four weeks out from the world title blockbuster, during a sparring session at the famed Headbangers Gym in Washington DC, his world was “sent spinning”.

“I got hit with a good shot in sparring,” Wilson recounted. “Afterwards, I went to have a lay down and, maybe an hour later, I got up to go to the toilet and fell over.

“Did a 360.

“I went downstairs and said to my trainers ‘man, I just went to go to the toilet and did a complete 360 and fell over the bed’.”

Worse, it kept happening.

“I would get up out of bed (at night) and fall over,” he continued. “I’d go to the toilet, fall over.

“I’d do sit ups in the gym and feel dizzy, nauseous.

“I was scared.”

Concerned, Team Wilson had their fighter stop sparring for a fortnight while undertaking concussion tests, visiting specialists and, the fighter wants stressed, undertaking every medical precaution possible

Yet, to a man, everyone said the fella with that famed ‘Left Hook From Hell’ was sweet.

Confusingly too, Wilson felt better in sparring than ever before in his life.

Same deal in the gym.

“So everything was coming back clear,” he said.

“According to the doctors I was fine. My sparring was normal, too.

“But I knew how I felt, and it wasn’t normal.”

Which eventually saw Wilson questioning if the fight should go ahead.

“I remember going down to the living room,” he continued, recounting a conversation weeks out from the fight with his trainer Ben Harrington. “I had tears in my ears and said ‘I have to pull out of this fight’.

“I said ‘I’ve got a brain injury, I’m falling over my own feet, something is going on in my head.”

Pushed by Damon on what he feared he was risking, Wilson continued: “You see stories of fighters who go into fights 100 per cent, and sometimes they don’t leave.

“And I was going in with a problem …”

Yet then next day, Wilson would wake for training and feel a million bucks.

Spar like a king.

With everything so bloody confusing that, eventually come fight week, Wilson’s mood had changed completely again as, apart from having been given the all clear by medicos, his body, mind, all of it felt great.

“In the end it was my decision to take the fight,” he said of the Navarrete showdown.

“And in the week of the fight everything changed.

“I knew what I was there to do.

“I was a man on a mission.

“No matter what happened throughout camp, there was no doubt in my mind that I was becoming world champion, that I was knocking Navarrete out.”

Which, effectively, he did.

Yet the real twist?

That came only eight weeks back, and just days before commencing what was to be his farewell fight camp, when Wilson, after having already been through a host of brain examinations, finally found a doctor who thought the explanation could be far simpler, sent him off to an ear specialist, and the fighter received his diagnosis of vertigo – or more specifically, Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV).

Most commonly, BBPV occurs when tiny calcium particles are dislodged from their normal location — by say, a heavy punch in sparring — and collect in the inner ear.

While symptoms can be severe, and prolonged, treatment most often requires a specialist performing a series of simple head repositioning techniques, which can all be done in one session.

Which only recently, Wilson underwent.

And guess what?

“Haven’t had a symptom since,” he says now, grinning.

Asked about the diagnosis, he continues: “It came the day after I told Courtney I was retiring.

“About a week before I started camp.

“I was diagnosed by a doctor, then went and got my head manoeuvred around by a specialist and everything went back into place.

“I couldn’t believe it.

“Thought ‘how is this even possible?’. It seemed so simple.

“The specialist told me how for eight out of every 10 people who have this procedure, the symptoms disappear.

“And I haven’t suffered a single thing since, thank God.”

All of which now sees Wilson looking to fight well beyond next Wednesday night, and extremely grateful for all he has endured.

“Because if I’d won a world title that night in Arizona, it would’ve been too good to be true,” he shrugs.

“Just 12 fights into my career?

“I would’ve been like ‘does it really all happen this easy?’

“So I’m glad everything is happening the way it is. And right now, I’m exactly where I need to be.

“I’ve heard Navarrete saying recently he wants somebody to give him a war. Cool.

“A war is exactly what I’m ready to bring.”