Former UFC welterweight champion Leon Edwards not too long ago spoke about postcode wars which have plagued England and different international locations, together with Jamaica the place ‘Rocky’ spent a lot of his youth earlier than shifting to the UK.
For these unfamiliar, the postcode wars consult with a time when teams of youngsters, normally boys, would defend their “turf” by combating gangs from different postal codes in the event that they dared to enter a postcode they didn’t reside in. It’s not fully totally different from the turf wars between rival gangs in the US just like the Crips and the Bloods that dominated American tv within the mid-to-late 90s.
And identical to with most of the big-name gangs within the U.S., children and younger adults within the UK would typically put their lives on the road for what basically amounted to a fierce satisfaction within the space they referred to as residence and a consequential hate of anybody who wasn’t from there.
Sadly, gang tradition remains to be as robust as ever in international locations like England and Australia, typically leading to property injury, severe damage, and even dying.
Throughout a current interview with Louis Theroux, Edwards spoke about his robust upbringing in Jamaica and on the imply streets of Birmingham the place he typically fought rivals entrenching on his turf.
“From school, you know, I’ve always—I’m the one that always, um—I’m the friend that, like, if you’re next to me, you’re in the fight. ‘Cause, you know, I won’t leave you, you know? And, um, so I had the name ‘Rocky’ from school,” Edwards mentioned. “Straightener, simply one-on-one. I don’t know, may—might be something, or postcode, or no matter. It’s bizarre, however on the time, I really believed it.
“Um, I was group Erdington, say, like, B23. With a young mentality, and your friends are doing the same thing, and that’s your environment, I think you’re more likely to be a product of your environment. It’s like, same as Jamaica, you know? Like, there, the people that have died over it probably don’t even know the reason why it started. And they’ve died over it.”
Leon Edwards returns to the octagon on March 22
After all, these days are lengthy behind Leon Edwards. Right now, ‘Rocky’ is among the finest pound-for-pound combined martial artists on the planet.
After seeing his 12-fight win streak snapped by Belal Muhammad in his final outing, Edwards will return to the Octagon on March 22 when the UFC heads again to London for one more stacked Combat Night time in ‘The Big Smoke.’ In the principle occasion of the night, Edwards will face rising contender Jack Della Maddalena in a title eliminator — not less than on Maddalena’s facet of issues.
