(Photo above by Stephanie Trapp)

THE BREADMAN

In over 40 years of covering boxing, I have encountered a number of especially interesting and knowledgeable people in the sport. Some are participants, ie. boxers, trainers, managers or promoters, and some are people who chronicle the sport in the media. Sometimes they are people who do both – a fighter or trainer, for instance, who participates in announcing boxing matches or does punditry covering the sport on TV, radio or digital platforms.

One person on this list of especially interesting and knowledgeable people is Stephen “Breadman” Edwards, the subject of this column. He not only makes this list, he is alone unto himself in one regard. He is a unique hybrid, a person who participates (as a world class trainer) and writes about the sport in his regular mailbag column. In the pantheon of these special people I’ve encountered, there are great trainers like Gil Clancy, Emanuel Steward and Joe Goossen who have also done TV commentary. Gil is actually the best color commentator of all time in the sport. There has not been anyone I encountered who has both participated in the sport and written about it at a high level – until Edwards. It is a fascinating and rare combination.  Only one other person, the great light heavyweight champion Jose Torres, comes to mind. He was also a fine writer.

It’s intriguing that Edwards’ role as a columnist and a boxing trainer both started in 2010. He was a familiar face in Philadelphia boxing gyms and had sparred and trained in those gyms, though he never actually competed in matches. He was also a partner on an emerging boxing website, and thus The Daily Bread Mailbag was born (a weekly column in which he answers questions from boxing fans). It was later that year that Julian Williams asked him to be his trainer as he entered the pro ranks. It turned out to be a magical pairing, with Williams eventually winning two world titles. And all the while, Breadman the columnist continued to earn respect from people in the industry. He fought through early adversity, in the form of negative and sometimes racially abusive comments sent his way, to win over boxing fans, who are by nature among the most prickly of sports aficionados. 

Edwards (far left) helped build Julian Williams into a junior middleweight titleholder. (Photo by Corey Perrine/Getty Images)

In choosing to mold this particular column, I set up a writing challenge for myself that I am struggling with even as I write this. Do I spend some of the column focusing in only on Stephen’s training exploits and then do the same for his writing, or do I somehow handle both simultaneously? HE has certainly found a balance for those two at the same time. Stephen said, “I do feel I see the sport in a unique way, commenting on it and being in the trenches. I’ve worked over 80 fights as a trainer, watching fighters all the way through camps, seeing them improve and change. Going through the ups and downs. The fans and even most of the media don’t see that. So it gives me a different perspective when I write about it. Sometimes a fan or even media person will see a training video, for instance, and make a judgment on a fighter from sparring, but they don’t know what part of his camp he was in, early or late, or how many other sparring partners had he already faced that day. All that matters.”

He now trains five fighters: former 168-pound titleholder Caleb Plant, the aforementioned Williams, middleweight contender Kyrone Davis, and two undefeated, promising fighters, junior featherweight Romuel Cruz and Erron Peterson. He says that’s a manageable number for him. Stephen’s training career began with Williams, following apprenticeships as sparring partner and helper in a Philly gym. As a fledgling trainer with a fledgling fighter, he was learning and seeking support. Both knowledge and support came from the legendary Naazim Richardson, who was welcoming and a great influence for a young trainer. Richardson had world champions like the great Bernard Hopkins, and yet HE was the one who was most welcoming to the newcomer.

Breadman works the mitts with Caleb Plant in preparation for David Benavidez in March 2023. (Photo by Toby Acuna/PBC)

Edwards’ beginnings in the boxing gyms also speak to an interesting talking point that sometimes comes up with certain trainers – whether they have been a competitive boxer and how successful they might have been. It is often mentioned in descriptions of Stephen that, like some other top trainers such as Joe Goossen and Bob Santos, he did not fight as an amateur or a pro. But that is misleading, because he did box, just not in actual matches. “I boxed plenty,” he said and added, “I was sparring with people as a hobby and I was learning boxing. I was giving and getting butt-whoopings. It would have never occurred to me at that young age that engaging in actual sanctioned matches was something I would need for a future discussion.” He added this to the topic: “I learned that the ability to do something and the ability to teach something are two different things. If only the best boxers are good trainers, then only boxing superstars would be trainers. Angelo Dundee had the best wins in boxing as a trainer. His fighters beat everyone and he never boxed a day in his life.”

“I learned that the ability to do something and the ability to teach something are two different things.”

Right now among Edwards’ fighters, there is no world titleholder, though that situation could easily get rectified in the near future with Plant or Davis, who lurk right around the top of their divisions, or possibly ex-champ Williams. Judging trainers by champions or even by wins and losses is a fool’s errand. In my book, I did a chapter about trainers I knew well – some had many world champions, a few had none. I wrote this: “Around the world, there are coaches in every sport who make athletes better, and they are the men and women that really matter most, whatever level their athletes reach. Athletics is about getting better and performing to your highest level. Yes, winning is somewhere in the equation, but if we trivialize those first two goals, then we cheapen the idea of sport.”  Interestingly, Stephen says he does not judge his success on wins and losses. He said, “I judge it by what I’ve been dealt and how guys perform. Kyrone Davis was a 10-1 underdog against Elijah Garcia, who came in five pounds overweight, and one judge seemed to have his scorecard filled out before the match even started. So much was against us that if Kyrone had lost, I would still have been proud.” Davis did, in fact, win a split decision despite the horrendous scorecard of Dave McKaie (he scored it 98-92 for Garcia while the other two judges had it 97-93 for Davis).

Edwards alluded to Caleb Plant losing to David Benavidez: “I was proud of what Caleb did that night. I think he won five rounds in that fight. He had not sparred in a year going into that camp and was coming off his first career stoppage. I feel we got him ready and he fought well. I don’t judge everything by wins and losses.”

As he churns ahead as a respected trainer, the 46-year-old moves on a parallel track as a writer about the sweet science. He does not think of writing as a job. He says that answering questions about boxing and the history of the sport is just fun for him. Some might even quibble with me referring to him as a writer because he does a question-and-answer column. They would be wrong to do so. His responses to the wildly different assortment of questions he fields are not just off-the-cuff responses. Most of them read like well-crafted essays on the topic at hand. They often intersperse historical nuggets or analogies with his answer to the specific question. No, he is not just a responder, he is a damn good writer.

The weekly column on the BoxingScene website became a cult hit and then a mainstream one as it progressed. Fans and boxing industry people alike read it religiously. It is written with unflinching honesty. As he works in a sport where fairness and integrity are not always on display, he sees the column “as the one pure and uncontaminated thing for me in this sport.” He added, “I get a question and I answer it honestly, however I want to do it.” Still, he does not just spill his thoughts out in an unfiltered or irresponsible way. “I do use discretion. If a question is too touchy because of my position as a trainer in the sport, I simply don’t answer it in the column.” I would add that, even though he is often opinionated in the questions he does answer, he is cognizant of being fair to the people he writes about.

Edwards consoles Kyrone Davis after throwing in the towel in the seventh round of his fight against David Benavidez. (Photo by Alejandro Salazar/PxImages/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

He is not afraid to challenge inequities in the sport as a writer and also as a trainer. Many remember his emotional outburst after the atrocious stoppage by referee Mark Nelson of Julian Williams in his 2023 fight vs. Carlos Adames. A 33-year-old ex-champ, Williams had lost two of his last three fights and was the decided underdog in this fight. For Williams, it was a shot at a WBC interim title. It was apparent from the outset that we were going to see a better version of Williams than had been shown in his last few fights. It was a competitive and exciting match. Round three was as good a round of boxing as you are likely to see. Adames hurt Williams in the fourth and appeared to be ahead in the fight. Steve Farhood, the “unofficial” for our Showtime broadcast, had Adames up by two points after eight rounds but had scored round eight for Williams. In round nine, Adames hurt Williams and had him in trouble, but Williams kept fighting back. Williams was actually throwing a punch at his opponent, who was against the ropes, when Nelson stopped the fight and made Adames the winner by TKO.

I will let Edwards put this into perspective from his viewpoint: “We put a lot into that fight with Adames. I saw what Julian put into it to get ready. That kind of opportunity doesn’t come along every day. Adames was being marketed as a feared guy and a big puncher. They even announced him to the crowd as the most feared man in boxing. I didn’t look at him exactly like that. Our strategy was to stay close early and then drown him later in the fight. (Adames had previously faded a bit in the later rounds of major fights with Patrick Teixeira and Sergiy Derevyanchenko.) And this fight had an ebb and flow with no knockdowns. This stoppage was a carryover from the fight he (Nelson) worked with David Morrell (vs. Aidos Yerbossynuly, where Nelson did not stop the fight and Yerbossynuly suffered serious injuries, which he ultimately recovered from). He was gun shy. And to add to that, one judge had it a shutout for Adames (the other two judges also had it for Adames by closer margins). It was not the correct decision.” Make no mistake, Adames fought well in this fight and deserved to be ahead on the cards, and there is no guarantee Williams would have rallied in the later rounds, but he and the fans deserved a chance to find out. The scoring and Nelson’s overall refereeing job in addition to the bad stoppage left one with a bad taste in the mouth about the “A” vs. “B” fighter equation. I hate that phrase more than anything in boxing, because there should not be an A or a B. There are only fighters who should be treated equally by officials, broadcast platforms and announcers, promoters and media in general. Lest you think Stephen is only questioning this because it is his  fighter, he is a champion of the fairness concept in his writing as well.

Edwards is currently preparing Caleb Plant for his next test on August 17 as the tries lead him back to a world title. He hopes for a middleweight world title for his hard-luck warrior Kyrone Davis, who is actually undefeated at middleweight. The man who ignited his rise as a trainer, Julian Williams, continues to campaign and hope for a last chance at glory. And Edwards works on two promising undefeated fighters. While he does that, he continues to comment on the sport in his column and use that “unique perspective” to illuminate boxing fans. I find myself always fascinated by his insights, and when those insights veer into opinion, I agree with him about 95 percent of the time. And here’s the thing about the other 5 percent: When I actually reread and think about it, he often wins me over to his viewpoint. 

I’m confident that the future will include a bigger video presence for Edwards, whether in podcasting or on a broadcast platform for fights. I do know this: That part of his career will not come at the expense of his responsibilities to his fighters. And, I doubt it will supplant the Mailbag column. After all, he has too much fun answering those questions. And we all have so much fun reading it.