The Connection: Stephen Edwards and Julian Williams Share a Unique Bond

[thenonpareil]

The impromptu sit-downs weren’t meant to be hands-on tutorials. They just turned out that way. Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was raised on the “Four Kings”: Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Roberto Duran, and Marvelous Marvin Hagler in the 1980s. He would sit on the edge of the family sofa in the living room alongside his maternal grandfather, Stanley Edwards Sr., a Korean War veteran and boxing fanatic who witnessed, live, Sugar Ray Robinson take apart Kid Gavilan at Philadelphia’s old Municipal Stadium on a hot July night in 1949.

Edwards and his grandfather watched their version of the classics: Leonard‒Hagler, Leonard‒Duran, Hearns‒Duran, Hagler‒Hearns, and with each fight came more wisdom and insight. It came with, “Look at the way Leonard uses positioning, and how Duran and Hagler wedge their way in to attack, and how Hearns can transform from a puncher to a boxer.”

The words stuck in Edwards’s head.

It’s why Stephen Edwards is like a forty-three-year-old with the wisdom of an old man. He’s an anachronism, someone you easily see on black-and-white film leaning over next to Jack Blackburn working Joe Louis’s corner.


https://hannibalboxing.com/the-connecti ... ique-bond/