Less than three weeks after becoming a world champion, Kell Brook’s career is in the balance. The Sheffield boxer, 28, was stabbed in Tenerife early yesterday morning and is feared to have lost a significant amount of blood.
Brook, the IBF welterweight champion, is believed to have been stabbed three times in his left leg and also suffered cuts to an arm after an altercation at an apartment adjoining a golf course.
On holiday with his pregnant partner, Lindsey, and his young daughter, Brook is believed to have visited a series of bars before arriving at an apartment in the area of Golf del Sur at 6am. It is there that he was stabbed.
He fled the apartment and staggered 100 yards to another apartment complex, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He then climbed over a wall and tried to get into a building by smashing a chair against a window. He failed to get in, but the noise alerted security guards, who called an ambulance and police.
Brook was taken to hospital in Santa Cruz, where he was operated on yesterday. Of greatest concern was the amount of blood that Brook had lost. One cleaner said that there was “a pond of blood” at the scene. His condition was described as stable and not life-threatening. Brook’s parents, plus Eddie Hearn, his promoter, and a lawyer, flew to be at Brook’s bedside.
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“The news has been a bit sketchy, but hopefully he is on the mend,” Hearn said. “We heard he lost a lot of blood, but he is in a stable condition.”
The holiday was intended as an opportunity to relax after his world title win over Shawn Porter in Carson, California, last month. His plans, including a bout against Amir Khan at Wembley Stadium next summer, are now in tatters.
Brook had expected to make the first defence of the IBF title in his native Sheffield on December 6, with Khan boxing in the United States on the same date. There now seems no chance of that occurring. Brook had expected to start training in two weeks, after visiting Las Vegas to watch Floyd Mayweather’s world title bout against Marcos Maidana, of Argentina, on September 13. It could be some time until Brook is able to train again, let alone box.
Despite some reports saying that a deal was close for a bout with Khan, talks were said to still be at an early stage. While Khan is still likely to box on December 6, a bout against Brook was not necessarily his top priority, as he remains on a shortlist for potential opponents for Mayweather.
It is not the first time that Brook has been stabbed. Seven years ago, he suffered knife wounds to his side and buttocks after being attacked in his home city. On that occasion, a group of men attacked him in the street after pulling up in a car as he walked away from a nightclub.
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The incident comes little more than a month after Jamie Moore, the former European light-middleweight champion, was shot in Marbella, where he had been training Matthew Macklin for a middleweight bout. Moore was hit by two bullets in a leg and hip. He is walking again and hopes to be in the corner of Tommy Coyle, another of the boxers he trains, in Hull next month.