A mixed martial arts champion has urged Rishi Sunak to accelerate funding for youth clubs, end years of cuts and “just help the kids”.
Leon Edwards, 31, a welterweight world champion who affiliated with gangs in his teens in Birmingham after his father was murdered, said the reason for rising violent crime in his region was clear: “There is nothing for the kids to do apart from being on your phone or on the street.”
Edwards was born in poverty in Jamaica and came to Britain when he was 11. He was arrested for knife possession growing up in the Erdington area of Birmingham and was involved with drug dealing. As recently as last year he lost a friend who was stabbed in the neck.
But after finding a new direction through a mixed martial arts gym aged 17, he has become one of Britain’s biggest MMA stars. On 18 March he will top the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fight card at the O2 arena in London, defending his world title against Kamaru Usman.
“The government needs to give some kind of investment back into the youth – into gyms, into OnSide [a youth charity he backs], stuff like this,” he said in an interview. “The older I get the more I hear about them cutting funds for the youth. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
The West Midlands police area has the highest knife crime rate in England. In 2021-22, there were more than 2,100 knife attacks causing injuries including 17 murders. Gun crime also hit its highest level for at least 13 years. But between 2011 and 2022 there was a 76% real terms fall in spending on youth services in England, according to the latest YMCA research.
Edwards is an ambassador for OnSide, which works with the UFC to train children in MMA in Croydon, Wirral and Wolverhampton. The partnership has made Maxine Thompson-Curl, the founder of an anti-violence charity One Punch UK, “very uneasy”. Thompson’s son Kristian, 18, died from brain injuries after being punched in a nightclub in County Durham in 2010.
“That training doesn’t make you contain your temper,” she said. “It just gives you more skill when you do lash out.”
The final moments of Edwards’ last bout – a single knockout head kick – attracted millions of views on YouTube and TikTok. In the moments after his victory Edwards shouted: “Pound for pound. Headshot. Dead.”
Asked if he feared the sport might encourage violence, he said: “It’s not violence. It’s a sporting act. It’s a technique … It’s like chess. There’s a move to counter every move that [your opponent] does … After the fight, you speak to the fighters you might have knocked out. You even have a drink together. Everyone knows the sport. There is no hate in it.”
MMA allowed him to get out of a life of street fighting and crime, he said. The sport is popular among teenage boys and “more than boxing, is the martial art of our times”, said Jamie Masraff, the chief executive of OnSide.
He said he “totally understood the way [having a UFC fighter as an ambassador] might be seen”, but MMA is about “discipline and controlled use of aggression” according to rules. He said the programme with the UFC also involved cookery, gym work and mentoring.
Masraff described the withdrawal of funding for youth services over the last decade as “criminal”. As facilities closed, more children were presenting at their “youth zones” with complex safeguarding issues, he said.
Edwards spoke after he sparred with children at the youth zone in Wolverhampton, a facility run by Onside. The charity has been expanding to fill gaps left by the withdrawal of state youth provision. In the ring he urged them to “choose your path; dedicate yourself to it”. He said: “I loved the family environment [of the gym]. I loved the positive feedback more than [being] on the street where it was all negative feedback.”
Edwards is planning to open a gym in his home area of Erdington, after the one that helped him closed a few years ago. But he remains concerned about the future, not least for his son, Jayon, 10.
“It’s worrying,” he said. “Especially him being a little black boy as well. Knife crime is very high. When I was younger it was only the bad kids doing knife crime. Now the good kids are carrying knives because they don’t want to get stabbed by the bad kids.”
A government spokesperson said it was “delivering significant support for youth services” with more than £300m to build or refurbish up to 300 youth facilities in deprived areas of England. It said it was spending another £300m to support councils in England and Wales to tackle and prevent youth offending.
