In July 2021, almost five years after Eduard Gutknecht was rushed into an ambulance outside Wembley Arena with a catastrophic brain injury, the Kazakh fighter’s family reached a settlement agreement with the British Boxing Board of Control. Then a 34-year-old father of four, Gutknecht had collapsed in his dressing room after twelve grim and one-sided rounds against George Groves in London.
The intervening years have shed little light on Gutknecht’s situation and details of his agreement with the Board are protected by a Tomlin order, meaning neither the financial value of the settlement nor any details of the court case can be reported on. In fact, there are few news articles online confirming the existence of the settlement at all. The most revealing can be found on the website of Fieldfisher, the law firm that represented Gutknecht’s family, who state that he “attends a workshop for the disabled during the day but the rest of the time is looked after by his wife and sister” and that he “needs constant reminding of how to perform daily tasks, such as cleaning his teeth, and will never be able to work or live alone.”
