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STEPHEN "BREADMAN" EDWARDS: "KYRON WILL BE JUST FINE...WE GONNA RUN THAT BACK"

By Percy Crawford | May 04, 2016
STEPHEN

"There were a lot of things that happened, Perc, behind the scenes that I really wasn't feeling, but we don't have a time machine. We can't go back on it. We just move on. I think Kyrone will be just fine...He's overcome adversity before; he just hasn't overcomme a professional loss. I think that he can come back. I think that the physical talent is there, but he may have been a little immature for the moment...We gonna run that back," stated world-class trainer Stephen "Breadman" Edwards, who talked about Kyron Davis suffering the first loss of his career. Check it out!

PC: Kyrone Davis suffered his first defeat as a pro on Fox Sports 1. What's his spirit like right now? How is he doing?

SE: I seen him after the fight and he looked really sad, man. It broke my heart. They're grown men, but in some instances, they still have kid-like behavior and I think the reality kicked in on Kyrone that he can lose a fight. Some people don't believe they can lose until they do lose. He was hurt, he was sad, and ashamed. He went through a whole lot of emotions. He apologized to me and I apologized to him. As a coach, you always think that you can do more. I take the loss 100% on me. There were definitely some things that I probably could have done better in preparation and throughout the fight. I told him this one was on me. Hopefully we'll get over it and continue to grow.

PC: Was Junior Castillo everything you thought he would be or something completely different?

SE: No, he wasn't. No disrespect to Junior Castillo, the fight went his way, but I thought he was a limited, one-handed fighter and that's exactly what I saw. He just has a straight left hand. He's a decent guy, but he's not more talented than Kyrone. But talent doesn't always win fights. Sometimes you have to just be able to win the fight. You can be better than someone and just not be able to beat them. Junior Castillo is okay; I don't look at him as this blue chip future world champion kind of guy. I thought we prepared for the straight left hand. We prepared for a guy that was basic with no salt and pepper in his game. He was who we thought he was going to be.

PC: How did you feel the flow of the fight was going?

SE: I thought Kyrone started off great. He was using his jab; he was using his boxing ability and his quickness. We planned on countering Castillo with the right hand and that's what we were doing. I went back and scored the fight on TV without emotions involved. I can see how the fight could have been 4 rounds a piece with the Castillo knockdown winning him the fight by a point, or 5-3 either way. It was a very close and competitive fight. Kyrone won the first 2 rounds easy and Castillo started stepping up a bit. He got knocked down in the 4th round. I thought Kyrone fought back from the knockdown really well. He showed a lot of heart and determination, but that changed the momentum of the fight. It seemed like after Castillo knocked Kyrone down, he felt like he belonged. Had Kyrone kept boxing him and countering with the right hand and the knockdown would have never came, I think Castillo would have gotten discouraged. It happened that way and as a young fighter, that's a lot to overcome. Boxing is a game of momentum. Once Castillo knocked him down, his crowd got on his side, Castillo's body language became more positive, and the judges started rewarding him for things, whether he was doing them or wasn't doing them. The perception was he was getting to Kyrone and hurting Kyrone even though Kyrone fought good after the knockdown. I think the knockdown killed our momentum and the perception of the fight.

PC: He's a 21-year-old kid dealing with the first knockdown of his career and the first loss of his career. How do you restore him and get him back to form?

SE: You have to get right back in the gym. He said his hip was a little bruised because the guy kept hitting him low and in his hip. As soon as that gets better, we back in the gym. We not going to keep harping on this. There have been better, more talented, and more higher regarded fighters than Kyrone who lost early or had mishaps early in their career; it happens like that. Sometimes you're the bat and sometimes you're the ball. This is not going to define his career. As the old saying goes, "You can't cry the blues when you lose. Just grin when you win." We are not going to talk about it every day in the gym. We're going to move past it and if the kid is the kid that I think he is, we going to look up and he's going to be 20-1. We're going to get Castillo back on neutral ground. There were a lot of things that happened, Perc, behind the scenes that I really wasn't feeling, but we don't have a time machine. We can't go back on it. We just move on. I think Kyrone will be just fine. 

PC: You've been around him and you're very honest with your guys. Do you feel he is the kind of kid that can bounce back from this?

SE: Sure! Kyrone lost a couple of national tournaments and came back and won and beat guys that beat him. I've seen him visibly rocked by a dude in the gym and Kyrone stuck it out with the dude and did another 8 rounds with him; and then come back to the gym a couple of days later and got the better of the work. I've seen Julian and Jesse Hart crack him with some big, heavy shit and he comes back and will box them the next day. He's overcome adversity before; he just hasn't overcomme a professional loss. I think that he can come back. I think that the physical talent is there, but he may have been a little immature for the moment, and that's something that I have to take the blame for. Maybe I could have waited a little bit longer. Kyrone's opponent before Castillo was a 30-year-old guy and Andrew Hernandez was a good gatekeeper kind of opponent. At the end of the day, Perc, it's not age divisions, it's weight divisions and Kyrone has 100 amateur fights. I thought he would be ready for the moment, but we going to go back to the drawing board and keep pushing.

PC: What were some of the things going on at the venue that you didn't care for?

SE: Well, the reason I take the loss is because I usually notice all kinds of little things leading up to the fight and at the venue and stuff like that. While I'm at the fight, I'm coaching Kyrone, so I'm zoned in. I can't notice what's going on; I'm just totally focused on the fight. But when I got home and settled down and got a chance to settle down and watch the fight on DVR, I noticed that Junior Castillo's promoter was sitting right next to a judge yelling and screaming. Now everybody has their allegiance and I don't mind anybody cheering against my guy, but the judges are up on the ring apron for a reason. In my opinion, they are up on the ring apron to isolate them from the crowd. When you have the promoter of your opponent sitting next to a judge yelling and screaming so close to a judge where he can physically see a judge's scorecard, I'm not saying...I would never accuse nobody of telling a judge to do anything, but that compromises the integrity of the fight in my opinion. I mean, listen, Floyd Mayweather is the best fighter on the planet. I wouldn't put him in that situation. We couldn't let Floyd Mayweather fight Triple G and let Tom Leoffler sit next to a judge. I have to take blame for the fight because as Kyrone's trainer, I gotta protect him from that kind of stuff and I didn't, man, and I felt like I failed him because I didn't notice the promoter sitting there until I got home. And I'm mad at myself because had I noticed it, I would've went to somebody from the PSAC and been like, "Man, he can't sit that close to the judge. That's not fair." Judges get influenced by the crowd; could you imagine how influenced they are by the person who is indirectly paying them? And then you have a 78-73 scorecard that was given out. Even Junior Castillo's biggest fans don't believe he won that fight by 5 points. Whether you thought Kyrone won the fight or Castillo won the fight, everybody has the fight a one or two point fight. That 78-73 scorecard lets me know that Kyrone would not have been able to win the fight on that judges scorecard under any circumstances. That's the way the cookie crumbles. I'm going to take this one on the chin.  We going to bring Kyrone back because, you know Perc, I don't baby no fighters. Kyrone didn't get knocked out cold; he didn't get beat all around the ring. We gonna run that back. I do good business with that promoter. I'm not saying anything sheisty happened, but I am saying if I would have saw that, I would have spoke up about it because that's not fair to my fighter.



[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]

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