"I don't allow him not to take a guy serious, but Jermall is a threat level. Jermall can punch. Jermall knocking guys out with jabs. Jermall is a big, strong kid that's undefeated with a lot of confidence. He don't know what it's like to lose. We know that we got a fight on our hands...He wants that fight date as soon as possible. I hope Julian is the underdog because I'm going to bet big on him. I've never seen him with such a demonic obsession for a win. It's like he knows he has to win this fight. And God forbid that it don't go our way. Jermall going to have a fucking fight on his hands, brother. I'm telling you. He is going to have a different kind of fight on his hands," stated Stephen "Breadman" Edwards, world-class trainer of jr. middleweight contender Julian Williams, who talked about his eagerness to step into the ring with jr. middleweight champion Jermall Charlo. Check it out!
PC: Would you like to go right into a title fight with Jermall Charlo or let Julian's bumps and bruises go down before entering a camp?
SE: Julian don't have any bumps or bruises. He didn't take any punishment. This is probably his fourth or fifth fight in a row where he didn't take a significant punch. Obviously you're going to get hit in a fight, but he never took anything significant. He don't have any injuries. A lot of the times, we have little nagging injuries that you just have to fight through. He never pulled out of a fight because of any injuries, but we've had them like everybody else. But we were fine for this fight. I'm going to tell him to do a little recovery trick that we do and his birthday is April 5th, mine is April 2nd, so I'm sure he's going to have a little fun for his birthday and then after that, we're going to start a little mini-camp. We don't need too much of a break, Perc. We're not getting hit, we're not taking any punishment. He's had rougher sparring sessions than this guy. This just counts on your record. I don't know who is going to show the fight. I don't know if it's Showtime, Showtime has shown us a lot of love. I don't know if it's going to be a PBC thing, that's not up to us. But we can be ready. If Jermall don't fight a fight in between, we can do it in June. It doesn't really matter to Julian. We will be ready.
I haven't really even spoken with the powers that be, so I honestly don't know the scenario. So I don't really know exactly when it's going to happen, but we going to have a little mini-camp in April just to be ready because I don't know how fast of a turnaround he has to have. And our last camp, honestly, was way too long. It's not a fighter alive that we need to train 4 months for, especially for a fast twitch kid like Julian. All we need is 7 to 8 weeks and we good; no more than 9 weeks to train for anybody, I don't care who it is. He's been fighting since he was 12 years old. He don't need that long to train for anybody. It starts to get stale after awhile in camp. We been training since November for this fight, man, so it starts to get a little bit stale when you're going that long, especially for the kind of fighter he is. He is a quick twitch reflex fighter. We don't need that long to get ready for a fight. We really can peak out after 40 to 50 rounds of sparring. So I'm going to give him a little bit of time off and depending on what they say, whether we will be ready at the end of the summer or beginning of summer, I just want him to start moving around a little bit in the gym, but nothing heavy.
PC: Julian is starting to call guys out and you have told me on several occasions that you won't be the guy to hold him back. Moving forward, how do you keep this geared in a positive direction and not let things out of his control become something that aggravates him or gets him frustrated?
SE: That's a good question. I just try to keep everything in perspective with him. There are a lot of things that motivate him. He wants to be great, he wants to go to the Hall of Fame, and I'm going to be honest, he likes money. He wants to be able to take care of himself. He's got a young daughter. He wants to be able to take care of his daughter. He wants to be able to provide a better life for her than what he had. He does not want to have to work when he gets out of boxing. There are too many cliché stories of guys who went broke. So there are a lot of things that motivate him. So every time that you win and you are a top 10 guy. especially when you're affiliated with who we are affiliated with, you're going to get a good payday. So there are a lot of things that motivate him and Julian understands that as long as you keep winning, you get a pay increase; when you lose, you get a pay decrease. He understands that. So just that in itself keeps him motivated and he's a prideful kid. For years people have been comparing him and Jermall. Not so much Jermell, but people have been comparing him to Jermall for years and who is the best of the two. They even have talks over there at the office at Haymon Sports and some people are picking Julian and some people are picking Jermall. I even had a bookie who makes big odds out in Vegas call me about the fight and said it's pretty much a pick 'em, but Julian should be the slight favorite. It's a pride thing. He don't hate the kid; it's just a pride thing. I talked to him today and I heard a sound in his voice.
He actually got upset with me and I like it. He told me how he was going to beat Jermall, man, and I haven't seen him this locked in for a fight since he fought Hugo Centeno. I told the reporter that was picking against him when he fought Hugo Centeno, I said, "Man, if Hugo beats this kid, then that kid is a tremendous fighter." And I'm going to say the same thing about Jermall. If Jermall can beat Julian now with the state of mind that he's in, man, he can fight. I'm telling you because I told Julian today, "Go buy a new car. Go spend some money. Go take your boys to Vegas and let them pop bottles." He don't drink. "Go out and do some stuff and travel for a month." He said, "Man, I'm so fucking locked in, I don't even know if I can move. I can't do nothing, dawg. I'm ready to fucking go. I wanna fucking fight him tomorrow." He's ready to go, man. We not starting a camp for another month and he's like, "I'm ready to fucking go tomorrow. Call Mr. Haymon up. I'm ready to go." And I'm not going to lie, he's not like that all of the time. With this last guy, we took him super serious. I don't allow him not to take a guy serious, but Jermall is a threat level. Jermall can punch. Jermall knocking guys out with jabs. Jermall is a big, strong kid that's undefeated with a lot of confidence. He don't know what it's like to lose. We know that we got a fight on our hands. This is what we call out here in Philly "a bump." This is a serious bump, man. We got a real fight on our hands and Julian is just like, "Steve, I'm telling you, man, he can't do shit with me. He not going to be able to do nothing with me." And then he got mad at me and was like, "You don't believe me? You don't fucking believe me?" I'm not going to say what style he said he was going to use, but he told me to watch. I had to tell him I know he was going to win the fight. I was going to go cash these checks that we got, so I'm trying to walk in the bank and he's going on about, "If you don't believe me, watch. I'm telling you, man, this shit ain't going to be as hard as they say it is. I'm going to make it look easy. He can't fuck with me, Steve. They can make the fight in May for all I care." I never heard him like that before.
PC: I have spoken to him several times and I can't imagine him being like that, to be honest with you.
SE: I'm telling you, man, I have only heard him close to that one time before and that was before he fought Hugo Centeno. He was so locked in for that fight. I knew there was no way he could lose. There were circumstances surrounding that fight with the passing of his mom, but I'm telling you, he's so eager. He's more like a dude that's like, "Man, I'll believe it when I see it. The guy is probably not going to fight me." He felt like Jermall put something on Twitter that let him know he was going to fight him. He wants that fight date as soon as possible. I hope Julian is the underdog because I'm going to bet big on him. I've never seen him with such a demonic obsession for a win. It's like he knows he has to win this fight. And God forbid that it don't go our way. Jermall going to have a fucking fight on his hands, brother. I'm telling you. He is going to have a different kind of fight on his hands.
PC: It's like you said earlier, the pay scale is so reliant on those 0's being intact on that record, two young, hungry guys that are undefeated and not willing to take a pay cut at this stage in their careers; I can't wait.
SE: Listen man, them kids going to go at it. I don't have nothing against Jermall. I like the kid, I like his brother, and I respect Ronnie Shields; it's just a business and it's going to be a great fight, man. I think it's going to have that Hagler-Hearns feel to it. I'm not saying they are better than them because I know how fans get with the comparisons and stuff like that, but I think it's going to be of that nature. It's going to be two young guys just putting it all on the line. It's going to be two young guys in their prime, undefeated; I think it's going to be a great fight, man. Hopefully it happens. I know Jermall has problems making weight, but hopefully it happens. I got full confidence in the IBF and that they are going to make him defend or vacate. It don't matter to me. My job is to get Julian ready for whoever, but hopefully it happens. I think it's going to be a great fight.
PC: I hope you guys get the fight. Best of luck moving forward and congrats again on a great performance. Is there anything else you want to add before I let you go my man?
SE: Thanks a lot for always showing us love and giving us a platform. I heard he did an average of 311,000 viewers on Showtime. That's pretty good for a kid that people called non-marketable and it was only his second fight headlining. And I think a lot of that is because of the platform that you guys give us over there at FightHype, so I really appreciate it.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]