Saturday, July 27, Manchester will witness the homecoming of its champion, Leon ‘Rocky’ Edwards when he defends his belt against rival Belal Muhammad in an epic grudge match. This will be the Brit’s third title defense and many might wonder what’s next for the champion. Well, as it turns out, Edwards is planning to move up in weight to middleweight and take on the competition, just not Israel Adesanya!
Yes, Leon is indeed eyeing a move to MW in an effort to rack up a second title but the welterweight king has made it clear that he doesn’t want to cross paths with his friend and former champion, Adesanya. Speaking to Nik Hobbs of SkySports, he said,
“I don’t know. I don’t care. Whoever is the champ at the time… Not Izzy, I don’t want to fight Izzy. Not because I’m afraid of him, just that we’ve built a relationship where it would be weird to fight him. I feel like I’d have to build myself up in my brain to compete against him, but everybody else, then yeah.”
Leon Edwards plans to move up to middleweight eventually but says he will NOT fight Israel Adesanya:
“I don’t want to fight Izzy. Not because I’m afraid of him… we’ve built a relationship where it would be weird to fight him.”
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In a one-on-one exclusive prior to his title defense, the champ was asked about his thoughts on double champ status. Edwards revealed his plans to jump the scale and compete in the middleweight category in maybe 2025 or 2026, late into his career. While the WW champion is confident in his abilities, he doesn’t ever want to face ‘The Last Stylebender.
In fact, the 32-year-old confirmed that he simply doesn’t want to ruin the relationship with Izzy and according to him, fighting the Kiwi is “weird.”
Well, this doesn’t mean that he will leave the WW division altogether. Meanwhile, his coach recently dropped his thoughts about Islam Makhachev moving up to welterweight to capture the belt and become the next double champ.
Leon Edwards’ coach shoots down Makhachev’s WW hopes
Jon ‘Bones’ Jones was the last double champ in the promotion when he defeated Cyril Gane last year to snag his HW belt, winning the belt in LHW and now in HW. Following the footsteps of the great, lightweight & welterweight champs – Islam Makhachev and Leon Edwards are poised for the climb.
While the Brit has revealed his desire to move up to 185 lbs, his coach, Dave Lovell believes that the welterweight division would be a hard nut to crack for the lightweight champion.
Speaking to Submission Radio, Lovell compared his pupil to the Dagestani wrestler, essentially saying that Pound 4 Pound king won’t have the same effect in WW, simply due to his size. According to him, Makhachev isn’t that big for the division and the Russian has never fought a sharpshooter like Edwards.
What do you think? How will a potential Islam Makhachev vs Leon Edwards bout end?
