Athletes
Team Renegade Hopes To Breed Champs, Positively Impact Community
In The Spotlight After Leon Edwards Earned UFC Gold, Team Renegade Stands As A Pillar In Birmingham
Leon Edwards’ title-winning head kick instantly went into the pantheon of greatest championship moments in the history of mixed martial arts. It is a moment still so stunning that hyperbole is nearly impossible. Down on the scorecards against pound-for-pound king Kamaru Usman, Edwards snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with a left kick from hell that crumpled the champ and reshuffled MMA’s world order.
What preceded that moment is also of note. After a grueling fourth round with Edwards on the back foot, his coach, Dave Lovell, got into Edwards’ ear and gave him simple instructions:
“Stop feeling f***ing sorry for yourself! Come on, then. What’s wrong with you? You gotta pull this s*** out of the fire.”
In the aftermath of the fight, a video showed Edwards’ striking coach Henry Cleminson and Lovell going over Usman’s tendency to dip to the right after an exchange. The left head kick, then, was the natural counter.
It all put the spotlight on Team Renegade in Birmingham, where Edwards sharpened himself on his long journey to the title. Now, according to everyone there, the phone is ringing off the hook and classes are consistently packed.
“That means the world,” Edwards said. “The gym is busy. It’s stopped up. It's amazing. And I'm excited to be the guy leading the way. Keep training hard, believe in your team, and you'll get there.”
Having a champion bred with a gym and team over time has an impact on the mat for everyone else training there. It’s something featherweight Arnold Allen saw when he trained in Canada with Tristar Gym, and he can draw parallels from Edwards bringing a title back to the gym, as well.
“The things that happened at that gym around (Georges St-Pierre) being the world champion are now happening here,” Allen said. “Having the world champion in the gym, everyone wants to do better. Everyone wants to be at a high standard.”
Allen’s decision to train at Team Renegade is particularly eye-opening to the quality of the coaches and training partners available. Three times a week, Allen commutes three hours each way from his home near Ipswich to Birmingham.
Leon Edwards Octagon Interview | UFC 278: Usman vs Edwards 2
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Leon Edwards Octagon Interview | UFC 278: Usman vs Edwards 2
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Although Allen’s six-hour journey is a little extreme, traveling throughout the country is a bit par for the course for mixed martial artists in England. Although the sport is growing exponentially, the facilities and reputation of the sport is still at a point where athletes might need to do some patchwork to get a camp together unless they go to somewhere like Team Renegade that has the coaches and other fighters on the mat a serious training regimen requires. Allen’s relationship with the gym came through former UFC fighter Tom Breese and Team Renegade coach Ash Begg, who he knew previously.
“There's no crazy egos,” he said. “People aren't trying to kill each other. We're all trying to get better as a team, and I think when there's an understanding that you're improving as a team, all the individuals get better. So, for me to get better, someone else has to get better, and for them to get better, I have to get better. The rising tide raises all ships.”
Not only is the gym breeding up-and-comers and contenders alike, but Lovell and Edwards are both tuned into the impact a spot like theirs can have on the Birmingham youth.
For Edwards, bringing the belt back to his community “meant everything,” and Lovell is hopeful about the affect his pupil’s championship moment can have.
“That moment that Leon (had) has grabbed a lot of attention,” Lovell said. “It has grabbed a lot of the imaginations of the kids, but when they actually see the training, they try a little bit of training. Not all of them stick to it still because, as you know, it's a hard game… A lot of them come in, they get a lot of aggression out and it's better to get that aggression out in the gym rather than out in the community among themselves. It can only be a positive thing.
Athlete Profiles: Arnold Allen | Leon Edwards
“It’s a great thing for Birmingham,” he continued. “A lot of the negativity (is) going on at the moment amongst the youth, so really, Leon doing that has made the kids from the inner city areas and deprived areas believe, ‘Well, you can achieve something if you really try to.’ It’s just making the effort to go out of your way to walk into a gym, and then the youth that is walking into the gym is welcomed by Ash, welcomed by Tom, welcomed by the team members because we were all youths one day and all youths doing things maybe we shouldn’t have been doing, so this is only a good positive vibe in the area, in general, but also in the gym.”
The ultimate goal of any gym, according to Lovell, is to produce champions, and he takes great pride in having a hand in Edwards’ journey to the top. They’re all eager to defend that belt after celebrating the moment, and after appearing as a guest fighter in Abu Dhabi at UFC 280, Edwards said he’s back to the grind in earnest.
Beyond Edwards, Team Renegade is optimistic they’ll bring more UFC gold to Birmingham. It’s always easier to fathom once it’s done, and even more so when it’s done the way Edwards did it. For now, he’s glad to be the face of the gym and the MMA scene in the UK.
“We've got great coaches for each discipline and just blend perfectly,” Edwards said. “We're not forcing it. Just a perfect team and good banter. Just perfect. I’m happy to be the front runner of it.”
