“It’s not easy to talk about this,” Kell Brook says in the corner of an empty changing room at the Ingle Gym in Sheffield. As layers of hurt fall from him like paint peeling off the surrounding walls, Brook reaches another dark moment. Despite the difficulties of admitting his vulnerability, Brook is a fighter and this is what fighters do. They might often lie to opponents and themselves but, when opening up about their demons, boxers tend to speak with unvarnished honesty.
After everything he has told me, I ask Brook if he no longer wanted to go on just two months ago. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I was really that low. I didn’t want to go on. People don’t know that. I hit rock bottom around Christmas. I remember sitting on my own, thinking: ‘No one loves me. What have I done to myself? What have I done to the people that do love me?’ I was at home and my missus and kids were out. I thought, ‘I’ve let people down who really love me.’ It was very bad. I was thinking of retiring. Things weren’t great at home. I was a lost soul – the lowest I’ve ever been.”
The former world champion, whose flawless record remained intact for the first 12 years of his professional career as a welterweight, has described the pain he endured after his last two bouts – both of which ended in crushing defeat and surgery on two fractured eye sockets. Even worse for a proud fighter, who is 31 and about to return to the ring when he faces Siarhei Rabchanka a week on Saturday, Brook fell into depression after being accused of quitting against Errol Spence last May.
Brook smiles wistfully. “It’s a beautiful sport, boxing, when you’re winning and everything is going well but when you hit the lows it really upsets you.”
Kell Brook on his way to his first ever defeat, after stepping up to middleweight to take on Gennady Golovkin at London’s O2 Arena in September 2016. Photograph: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
He had performed bravely when moving up two weight divisions to challenge the formidable Gennady Golovkin at middleweight in September 2016. Brook was finally saved by Dominic Ingle in his corner in the fifth round after a brutal battle left him with a broken right eye socket. His surgeon warned he would have risked blindness had he fought on.
The trouble intensified against the gifted Spence eight months later. In the ninth round the socket in Brook’s left eye was damaged. He talks now of the haunting sound it made – like “a crab claw popping”. The loss of his welterweight world title was matched by devastating accusations that he surrendered.
Tony Bellew and Chris Eubank Jr, both courageous boxers, were among the accusers. Brook winces. “They know what it’s like to be a top fighter and it upsets me they thought I was quitting. Until you’ve had this injury you’ll never know what it’s like. I could have big swollen eyes, cuts, and it won’t bother me. Even if the eye was blown up and I couldn’t see out of it, I’d still see out of the other eye and fight on. But when it’s double vision it’s like you’ve got no eyes.
“It cuts so deep. I’ve boxed all my life, and there’s no quit in me, but I couldn’t see. I was seriously injured. And when you’ve got children? When the surgeon said one more big shot from Golovkin and you’d be blind? You still don’t want to stop but Spence knew I was a wounded animal.”
Life became too much for Brook but, feeling strong again, he can now address his depression. “I moved house and for six months I can’t remember getting up. I’d be laying there thinking, ‘What’s the point getting out of bed?’ Nobody is phoning up, saying: ‘Go to work.’ I noticed after Spence the phone wasn’t ringing. All the hangers-on had vanished. When you win everything is great but when you’re losing nobody wants to know you – except for the people that really love you.
“I was going out, drinking a lot. When I was drinking I was thinking I was having a good time but it came back twice as bad, the depression. It was just a vicious circle – drinking, not caring about myself – and it gave me a bad low.”
Did his partner Lindsey and their two daughters notice a change on the day he realised he needed to haul himself out of trouble? “It took time. She wasn’t happy with me but time is a healer and I promised her I’m going to be a changed man and not let her down again.”
Brook pauses when I ask if Lindsey and his parents wanted him to stop boxing? “They didn’t know because I’ve never been this bad. They just said: ‘Follow what you believe.’ Eventually, I knew I needed to fight again. I couldn’t leave the sport like that because it would probably end badly. I did speak to a counsellor after hitting rock bottom. It really did help, talking to somebody that didn’t know me and just pouring my heart out to them in a few sessions. That’s when I thought I’ve got unfinished business in boxing. I started to love boxing again.”
Brook faces up to defeat and the loss of his IBF world welterweight title to Errol Spence at Bramall Lane in May 2017, with a second broken eye socket. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Reuters
Brook has been a professional for almost 14 years and he won his first 36 fights but Golovkin’s power and Spence’s brilliance shook him – as did his terrible eye injuries. “Losing to Spence felt like my first loss because Golovkin was at middleweight. I lost my world title to Spence at home and it was hard. But against Golovkin I was feeling good letting my shots go. Golovkin’s a serious guy but every time I caught him I grew in confidence. Until the eye went it was looking great. But that was the hardest I’ve been hit – definitely. He’s a very concussive puncher. The double vision started so quickly and it got worse.”
How did the pain compare when Spence broke his eye socket? “It wasn’t as bad as Golovkin because that one went completely blurry. With Spence it didn’t come on as quick but when I was getting hit more frequently the double vision started. It’s like putting thick lenses on. Your coordination is out and you feel cross-eyed. You can see three of him and people say: ‘Hit the middle one – like in Rocky.’ But it’s like nothing you’ve experienced before.
“At first you can’t really feel the pain with the adrenaline. It’s more the noise your eye makes. It’s like a crab claw popping – you can really hear it. I went like this with my glove [pawing his face] to try to put the eye back in place because it drops and puffs out. And when I breathe I can feel the air coming in and out of my eye.”
His eye surgeon is called, fittingly, Muhammad Ali. He watched Brook sink to his knee in the 11th round before the fight was stopped. “My surgeon was ringside. In the corner I was looking down at him. He was shaking his head, saying ‘No’. He kept shaking his head, round after round but I kept thinking I’m in Sheffield, Bramall Lane, and my world title is on the line. I had to carry on. But many things were rushing through my mind.”
Now Brook faces Rabchanka at light-middleweight in Sheffield. “He’s a hard East European so this is no warmup. He’s up for world titles and he’s a very tough customer. But I needed to pick this guy because it’s getting harder for me to get up for fights after big names like Golovkin and Spence. This guy worries me and I’ve got some fear. Any slip-up now, after two defeats, it’s bye-bye to boxing. Defeat is not an option.”
Does his surgeon believe Brook should still be fighting? “He doesn’t tell me that. He says: ‘You’ve had two x-rays, the bones have healed and the plates are there so you’re good to go.’”
Brook must worry about his eyes? “You’re going to think about it,” he admits, before grinning. “But you’ve got to be not wired up right to be a fighter in the first place. Once the adrenaline kicks in I’m going to be in the moment and not thinking about it. I’ve sparred today and not thought about it.”
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Kell Brook: ‘You’ve got to be not wired up right to be a fighter in the first place. Once the adrenaline kicks in I’m going to be in the moment and not thinking about it’. Photograph: Jon Super/Guardian
Brook points to the bruising beneath his left eye. “I’m actually glad I’ve got this shiner because it’s the first time I’ve been hit in the area. The sparring partner hurt his hand – too much steel there – but it’s not affected me at all.”
After Rabchanka, Brook hopes to win a second world title before fighting Amir Khan in a huge British fight. Was he hurt that his bitter rival had joined his promoter, Eddie Hearn? “A little. I thought: ‘Eddie, you’re supposed to be my boy.’ But I’m cool with it now. It’s actually a great move because we’ve had no success getting the fight before. Now we’re in the same team so Eddie’s going to be with him a lot, and with me a lot. It’s a big-money fight, we’re both the same age and it’s a no-brainer for the fans and ourselves. The fight’s got to happen.
“I’ll do everything in my power to beat Khan. It will cleanse things. I’m feeling great but I’m not going to be fighting for many more years. It’s the game you can legally get killed in but the best thing you can do is make sure you’re in a great place – like I am now. Everything is running smooth. Family life is good. I’m feeling positive, got a spring in my step.”
Brook sinks back against the peeling wall and smiles again. “We live, we learn, and we rise again,” he says, sounding like a fighter to the core.