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From a knife in his pocket to a world title

TV 2 Echo

Photograph: TV 2 Echo

TV 2 Echo's profile opens with Assouik at fourteen — carrying a knife, known at the local police station — and the night after one of those visits when he decided to put everything into Muay Thai instead.

Eight world titles later he runs a gym and works as a social counsellor with teenagers heading the way he was. That second job, rather than the belts, is what the piece is actually about.