Hello, 1212. Are you there?

Hello, Louis Thru here. Welcome to my podcast called the Louis Thruh

podcast. Yes, it's still called that.

Today I'm speaking with British MMA fighter and UFC welterweight champion Leon Rocky Edwards.

Leon was born in Kingston, Jamaica, moving to Birmingham at nine years old. His dad had been a gang leader.

He ended up getting killed when Leon were just 13 years old, and in order to keep Leon out of trouble, his mum signed him up for a local gym where he began fighting.

We talk about all of that.

He became a professional fighter in 2011 and signed with the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 2014.

That's the big promotion, really, the only one that counts.

I think you could say it's massive.

In 2022, he had a career-def defining victory over Camaro Usman with a dramatic fifth round knockout is legendary in UFC

circles, and in fact, there's even memes of Joe Rogan's reaction when it happened, a look of

total shock that get recycled when anything explosive happens on the internet. He claimed the

UFC welterweight championship belt, becoming the second British UFC champion ever. So he's a big

deal and it was in fact my son, my middle son who put him on my radar and said, Dad, you should speak

to Leon. He's obviously a role model and icon to many of the nation's teenagers.

At the time of recording, Leon is ranked number one in the UFC's welterweight division.

Slightly off the back of my son's interest, also because I'm curious about boxing and

martial arts generally, I began following UFC a few years ago.

I've been to one or two bouts, one or two events, when it's come to London.

It travels. The promotion travels, and so they do events sometimes at the O2 in London,

and it's quite an amazing night out.

...