Kieran Farrell came close to death in the ring but now he's a part of Daniel Dubois team

Kieran Farrell was lying in bed in Heywood early in 2013 watching clips on his phone of some of Deontay Wilder’s devastating knockouts.

He called for his brother, Nathan, to come watch them with him but his sibling could not. A boxing family but a brother who needed a break from the brutality of it.

Yet Kieran did not. Despite it just being a few months since he nearly lost his life in the ring in December 2012. After a thrilling English title fight with Manchester favourite Anthony Crolla, Farrell slumped soon after the first defeat of his career was confirmed. A bleed on the brain caused him to collapse and he very nearly lost a much bigger fight.

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Yet here he was during his recovery already blissfully watching one of the most powerful punchers in the sport render opponents unconscious.

Boxing nearly took life from Farrell but he couldn’t stop loving it. It is why he won’t even grimace in the corner of Daniel Dubois this weekend should the fighter knock out Oleksadr Usyk.

“He really didn't want to look at it,” said Farrell. “It knocked him sick, you know what I mean? “Whereas, I loved it. I just enjoyed it, you know, I mean, I just think boxing has been like an obsession of mine.”

Farrell wanted to fight again when he recovered from the brain injury but obviously it was never an option with 30 per cent of his grey matter removed.

“I had depression. Mine might not have been publicised as much as Rick Hatton and there might not have been substance abuse and stuff like that,” said Farrell, a once promising lightweight now an in-demand trainer. “But I just keep my head down and I have probably too many Ben & Jerry's or something, you know what I mean?

“My dad said to me, look we can do this, we can do that, we could open a business up for you, I'm like, dad, I don't want no f***ing money, I want to box but he said ‘well you can’t’."

Then it was a phone call from another fighter who had his career cut short due to a brain injury which sparked his move into coaching. “Spencer Oliver rang me up and it was his idea,” said Farrell.

‘The People’s Gym’ was born and Farrell would begin to not only help the local community but create amateur champions and decent pros.

He did it for a decade then opportunities further afield came up. A chance to work in Saudi Arabia was lucrative but difficult to be away from his young family.

Then a message from Dubois changed everything. Don Charles, Dubois’ head coach, had seen some of Farrell’s pad work and liked it. o the fighter himself got in touch via Instagram as he wanted a new face in his training team after a defeat by Usyk in 2023 was followed by a big win over Jarrell Miller.

Farrell moved his life to London and is one of the cogs in the machine which has seen Dubois steamroll Filip Hrgovic and Anthony Joshua to go into this weekend’s rematch with the Ukrainian as IBF heavyweight champion.

“If you asked me, did I think I'd be working with a heavyweight champion in the world or the world number five when we first started, the world no 2 behind Usyk?” he said. “Never in a million years.” But this is just another chapter in Farrell’s life.

He dreams of one day training a world champion in Las Vegas and fulfilling a dream he had as a fighter. But after 2012, everything is a success for Farrell.

“I can say life throws them roundabouts in there and we've just got to keep overcoming everything and just keep our heads down and just keep working hard, man,” he said. “And everything will work out, it always does, you know what I mean?”