Lee Selby on his love for animals and new additions to the form and pain of seeing brother Andrew retire at just 31
TOP QUAIL-ITY lightweight Lee Selby had a Mike Tyson moment looking up his beloved birds on the internet.
Barry’s former featherweight world champ is a devoted animal lover, with his busy family home a haven for dogs, ferrets and chickens.
When he added half a dozen quails to his menagerie he checked YouTube for tips on how to care for them and was stunned when a fellow pet owner calmly decapitated one of his own for the cooking pot.
Iron Mike famously switched from chubby lisping teenager to the planet’s baddest man after a bully ripped the head off of one of his racing pigeons – and Selby was similarly shocked.
Ahead of his fight with George Kambosos tomorrow night, he said: “Quails are my newest additions to the family, they lay the little tiny eggs that taste nice but are a bit fiddly to peel once they are boiled.
“Up at lightweight I can eat a few more of the eggs, I wouldn’t eat one of my own birds but I have seen a lot of people that do.
“When I first got a quail I looked up some videos on YouTube and there was a guy holding his pet quail and talking about looking after it.
“Then he started talking about ‘preparing’ it and then he took a pair of scissors and chopped his head off and started cooking it!
“I couldn’t believe it, poor little b******, he was talking so nicely about the animals and then he chopped off his head”.
Welshman Selby, 33, is one of the most naturally gifted boxers Britain has ever produced but the attention-dodging ace is not even the best boxer in his family.
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Little brother Andrew, 31, is regarded as the finest talent to ever come out of Team GB but he recently retired after just 14 pro fights, with no world title and a plague of personal problems.
And the pain of seeing his baby bro not fulfil his potential clearly still haunts Lightning Lee.
Lee confirmed: “My brother is not boxing anymore. He is not doing too good.
“High expectations are hard for anyone to handle.
“When my brother left the Team GB set-up with so many accolades and medals, he was expected to become a world champion and that is a lot of pressure. Some people handle it and some don’t.
“I have done everything I can to help him but you have to want to want to help yourself.
“No matter how much anyone tries to help somebody, if they don’t want to help themselves it is wasted effort.
“It’s not been easy for the whole family, these last few years, but you have to get on with and there are a lot of people a lot worse off.”
Selby should leave Wembley, on the Derek Chisora vs Oleksandr Usyk undercard, with a 29th pro win and a mandatory shot at the IBF’s 9st 9lbs crown.
But his biggest fans won’t care as long as he gets back to Wales to feed them.
He said: “I have always had animals. They don’t demand anything from you, they always show you love.
“Win or lose they always run up to you and show you love.”