Kell Brook finally answers his phone. Of course he is not at home. The world champion is where he should be only days from his latest title defence, against the anonymous Canadian Kevin Bizier on Saturday in Sheffield .
Brook is toiling away in the gym in downbeat old Wincobank. This is Brendan Ingle’s famous boxing shrine where he shaped Herol Graham, Naseem Hamed and little Kell Brook .
St Thomas’ is deserted now and Brook soon cuts to the heart of his life and describes how elation was swallowed up by despair. “I can’t really explain how high the feeling was winning that world title in California with my family watching me,” Brook says. Brook had become only the second British fighter to depose a world champion in the US. Lloyd Honeyghan had made history when shocking Donald Curry in 1986. Brook’s defeat of the unbeaten Shawn Porter felt as seismic to the Sheffield man.
“My mum and dad remembered me as a little kid, with teeth missing,” he says. “I had been to the gym and told them I’d become a world champion. So when I became the king of the welterweights I can’t put into words the feeling of seeing my mum and dad upset with joy, seeing my partner, Lindsey. We were looking at each other and they were saying: ‘You’ve done it, son, you’ve done it.’
Brook pauses, his face clouding. “Then, soon after that, came the darkest time, a time when I didn’t think I was going to live. I didn’t think I was going to walk again. I remember laying on a hospital bed in Tenerife and it was shocking.”
The shock of being stabbed so badly while on holiday with Lindsey in Tenerife in September 2014 , just over two weeks after he won his world title, seeps through Brook again.
“It was nearly a week before we finally got hold of someone, a doctor, who could speak decent English. He said: ‘I believe you will make a 100% recovery.’ Plain as day now I can see my mum and dad in that hospital room. We were so emotional, thinking: ‘We’ve got another crack.’”
Brook looks up. “It’s been a rollercoaster. It’s been mad. I needed my family around me to get through that dark time. It’s definitely changed me because, coming out of hospital, it felt like a new world. I felt the breeze and heard the birds singing. I saw the sand and I was thinking: ‘These small things in life are so precious.’ It’s changed how I look at life, how I look at my kids. It had a big effect on me - because I was close to death.”
We have hardly spoken about Bizier and the challenge the Canadian may present on Saturday. He nods when I say the only fact I really know about Bizier is that his two defeats were against Jo Jo Dan - another Canadian-based fighter whom Brook stopped in four rounds last year. It must be hard to motivate himself against Bizier rather than Khan or their American rivals?
“It’s not a huge fight,” Brook admits, “and it has been hard getting up for it. Bizier has not got the Shawn Porter factor, the Keith Thurman factor, the Danny García factor. He doesn’t spread the fear of those American guys. You need that fear - thinking this guy is a machine coming for me. They make you train hard. But Bizier has desire and he will be hungry. I learned that lesson against Carson Jones.”
Brook’s toughest fight, when he almost lost to Jones, was in July 2012 . He eventually won a majority decision but he spent much of that night in a Sheffield hospital after his nose was broken badly. “I did underestimate Jones and it were a Gypsy warning, a big wake-up call. I lay in hospital, thinking: ‘This is a game where you can legally get killed if you’ve not done everything right.’ That’s why I’m working hard for Bizier.”
Khan, inevitably, still hangs over Brook. Did he believe their fight was about to happen? “Absolutely. It was close. But you saw him on Twitter. He was talking like he were the champion.”
Unlike Brook, Khan does not hold a world title. But Brook’s camp alleged Khan was demanding 80% of the combined purse. “The Khan kid has delusions. But we weren’t getting dictated to when we are the world champion. I’ll take care of the mandatory [challenge of Bizier] and that will free up some big fights.
“I want Khan but I think his demands were a way of avoiding the fight. He sees it as too much of a risk. He’s gone for Canelo. Even if he loses he can say that big weight difference was the factor. So I understand why he took the fight because there’s also a big pot of money.
“When it first got announced I thought there’s no chance he can beat Canelo. But now I think he could do well. If he listens to his coach and follows the precedent of how to beat Canelo - given in the Floyd Mayweather fight [which Álvarez lost widely] - Khan could do well. I still think Canelo wins. He’s a proud Mexican who will find a way and nail this Khan kid at some point.”
The hype implies the British rivals hate each other - but such venom is rarely true of fighters. “I don’t want him hurt,” Brook says of Khan. “We’re both from Britain and fighting away from home, against these Americans and Mexicans, I want Khan to win. If he does - fantastic. I’m not praying he gets splattered. But when it comes to me and him, in this country, I want to destroy him. He’s got no respect for me and I’ve come up the hard way.”
“Now, Lindsey, me and our two girls live in the best area of Sheffield. Our oldest daughter [aged four] is so far ahead of where Lindsey and I were as kids. We want the best for the girls. The best areas, the best schools.
“When I come back from the gym I can’t believe I’m driving up those roads to my house.
“ As a kid, mum and dad would take me to the Toby Carvery for a treat and we’d drive past these big houses with high walls and cameras. I always said I want to live there one day. I do now - but I deserve it. I suffer in the gym every day. I’ve got the black eye to prove it.”
Brook grins as he gestures to his bruised face and imagines the riches of a fight against Khan. “I have a huge house surrounded by luxury but I’ve earned it. That house is beautiful but it’s not quite champion. I have my eyes on something better - the perfect champion’s house. One of those even better houses with the big gates opening up, the long drive, the even bigger mansion. It’s out there - and I will get it.”
Kell Brook
