The headlines made for shocking reading: “Boxer Kell Brook stabbed on holiday in Tenerife!” Weeks after achieving his life-long dream, it looked like the champion’s career was in jeopardy. Initial reports were that the injuries were sustained in an entirely “unprovoked attack,” though details were sketchy, at best. A week later, Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper was granted an exclusive “tell all” report from the fighter, but his story doesn’t quite add up. The attack was presumably the gory end to a night of drinking with strangers, but one wonders why no one has been arrested since the assailant, if Brook’s version of events is true, could be easily identified, and also since The Daily Mail claims to know the man’s identity.
Celebrating a great victory with a drink or two certainly isn’t a crime, and Kell is definitely not the first world-class athlete to let his hair down and end up landing in a spot of bother. But in Brook’s case, it was just the latest in a series of strange incidents. In 2007 he was stabbed by a group of men outside a nightclub in his home city of Sheffield and was hospitalized with knife wounds. In 2010 he was convicted of assaulting a bar manager on a night out in Barnsley. Clearly, there is a side to Kell Brook not reflected in the public image and which, to some extent at least, remains a mystery.