Leon Edwards: not the fabulous life of a winner

Some fighters find it hard to become media-friendly. Some lack charisma, and some lack spectacular knockouts. Leon Edwards, 29, lacks everything: he can’t talk, he doesn’t use a thrashing, and he ends most of his fights with a decision. He may fight a year or two apart, but he made it to his title shot by some miracle. And he took it: he lost the rematch to Kamar Usman, and with a minute to go, he gave away both the cumulative knockout and the knockout of the year. Edwards’ high kick cut the dominant champion, considered by many to be the new greatest fighter of our time. Leon is now the new champion of the UFC welterweight division.

The UFC is a trendy sport. It is spectacular, and you can bet on it. If betting is not your option, then real money online casino India may interest you. But let’s move on to Leon Edwards.

And while Leon has a reputation as a boring guy, there’s a creepy life story behind it. The fighter survived:

• Poverty;
• Father’s death;
• Gunfights and other nightmarish things.

Edwards lived in a cabin and saw gunfights; his father was a local gangster.

Leon was born in Jamaica and spent his childhood with his parents and brother in a tiny wooden shack. There was only one room: kitchen, living room and bedroom. The family slept on the same bed, but Leon felt no shame – it was how everyone around him lived.

Leon was the only boy in the neighborhood who got a radio-controlled car and a bicycle. But the neighbors didn’t touch Edwards – his father was a criminal mastermind. Everyone in the house knew what he did, but they didn’t judge him. Shootings, drug dealing, and robbery were commonplace in those parts.

“Kingston [the town where Edwards’ family lived] was crazy. It was full of crime and gangs. The place where we lived was called the ‘line.’ It’s an area you shouldn’t leave. In the other “lines,” you are constantly in danger; you can’t walk on them at night. People are poor but keep fighting for territory. Poverty and hunger probably do that to men. It was crazy,” Leon recalled.

Life in Jamaica forced Edwards to grow up early. He saw people shoot each other:

“As a kid, killing became the norm for me. All a kid sees in Jamaica is drugs, murder, shootings, and poverty. We didn’t hide when we were playing and heard gunshots. We just looked around and kept going.”

The father died when Edwards was 14 – and the boy joined a gang.

When Edwards was 6, his father moved to London, and a few years later, he moved his family. They settled in Aston, a crime-ridden neighborhood in Birmingham. The father stayed in London, working as a criminal and visiting his family on weekends. But there wasn’t enough money – Leon’s mother worked as a cleaner to support the children. 

When Edwards was 14, his father was shot and killed in a nightclub. The family had heard that money was the reason, but they didn’t know the details. They knew it would happen sooner or later. Leon had taken the loss of his father hard and had become out of control:

“Aston was full of gangs. They were competitive, and there was constant violence between them. So I joined the younger guys. I didn’t plan to join a gang – it was a survival way. People don’t understand that opportunities are limited when you don’t know any better.”

Leon fought all the time: to protect his friends, to earn respect, or to intimidate another gang. For that, Leon was nicknamed “Rocky” back in high school. Although the fighter competes in the UFC under that nickname, he recalls his teenage years with horror.

His mom took Leon to the gym to get him out of the gang.

When Leon was 17, he and his mom were walking in Erdington, a part of Birmingham where they had moved from Aston. They saw a new gym where they had announced a recruitment drive for an MMA group. Mom wanted to get Leon off the street and signed him up for training. The kid didn’t know what MMA was – it was a new sport to the UK. Mom struggled to pay for the classes, but it worked out well for her son. Leon was no longer stuck on the street but trained hard – often several times a day.

“I am truly grateful to my mom for what she did for me. I didn’t notice it when I was a kid, but now I have a little boy myself. I know now that she did what she had to do. She helped the family survive – I didn’t need anything. I practiced two or three times a day, seven days a week. After a few months, I asked the manager of the gym if I could work for them, teaching the kids, and not pay for training. To my surprise, he said yes,” Edwards recalled.

Leon held his sooner unprofessional row after eight months of training. Finally, he won four contests in one night and realized he was made for MMA:

“I knew it was what I wanted to do. I was good at it; it was natural. I believe that’s why God put me here.”

When Leon got into the sport, he pulled some friends into the gym. The dark-skinned guys in the area saw his friend’s progress and tried to follow his path. It’s something Leon is proud of to this day. He was able to show them another way – without crime.

Difficulties have made Edwards a fighter.

Edwards is one of the most versatile welterweights in the UFC. And he proved it in his fight against Usman. He was only 23 when he signed with the UFC. Leon knew he wanted to be a champion – and never go back out there:

“When you see a different way of life, you perceive things differently. Now I travel a lot and see different people. It broadens the mind – I learn from everyone I meet. I want to pass that on to my family, my son, everyone around me.”

It’s fantastic to have achieved what I’ve achieved with this background. The people I’ve known have gone a completely different way. They’re either dead, in jail, or broken. It could have happened to me, too. I still don’t know why I managed to get out.

I do what I can for my family and loved ones because I know: it could have been with us. My brother Fabian is also a fighter – he fights in Bellator – but my primary motivation is my son. I want to leave him something I didn’t have myself. So I’m working daily to give my family the best life I can.”