‘That’s the one thing we changed’: Plant’s trainer discusses changes in their preparation for McCumby fight

Stephen Edwards says they’ve incorporated more sparring in Caleb Plant’s downtime between fights, which has been keeping him as sharp as possible.

In this video interview with Fight Hype, Caleb Plant’s trainer Stephen ‘Breadman’ Edwards talks about tailoring Plant’s approach in training camp for this upcoming fight against Trevor McCumby and why it’s been paying dividends. Breadman also touches on why the general inactivity of today’s fighters hamper their growth as professionals. Check out some excerpts of what he had to say below.

Breadman on Plant saying this is the best training camp he’s ever had

“It’s certainly the best camp we’ve had together, definitely the best camp we’ve had together. Over the last couple years I probably spent about 30 weeks with him and this camp is the best camp we’ve had together. We kind of bumped heads on how long the camp should be. I believe if you’re in shape camp should be no longer than eight weeks or you start overcooking, but he likes longer camps.

“This camp, I’ve been here about nine weeks because they guy got hurt, got cut, so we had to kind of — we trained about eight weeks, though. We trained eight weeks, so he’s been perfect. He got a good strength and conditioning coach that keep him in good shape in between fights and him and his dad work in between fights, so when I get out here I don’t want to have to worry about weight and stuff, I just worry about staying sharp.

“Guys in Vegas, they don’t spar all the time, man. They only spar when they got fights. East coast cities, Philly, D.C., we spar all the time so guys stay sharp all the time...In this era you’re only fighting once a year, once every eight, nine months, so how you not going to spar, only when you have a fight? I don’t believe in that.

“That’s one of the things I had to change with him. Like, ‘bro, you need to spar.’ You don’t got to spar a killer, but four rounds a couple days a week just to keep your eyes sharp, that’s sh-t will take you a long way. And then in camp you don’t got to over-press, you don’t got to go so hard because you already ready to go. So that’s the one thing we changed and it’s been working out good.”

On if Plant wanting longer training camps are a testament to his work ethic

“Yeah but the word camp gets overused. It’s your job as a fighter to stay in just at least respectable shape. You can’t around peaking out, but it’s your job to stay about 75-80% of your shape. So I don’t even really like using the formalities like ‘camp, camp, camp.’ You’re supposed to be in shape, that’s all I can say...that’s the one job that you have, is to stay physically fit to fight.”

On fighters in this era of boxing being much less active than previous generations

“I don’t like the inactivity. In anything as far as skill, repetition makes it better. So you’re not going to get better staying out of the ring, but that’s way above my pay grade. That got something to do with the networks and how the guys get paid. But I just don’t believe in like once a year, once every two — that’s ridiculous.

“Four fights in a year is hard, to be honest, but two to three is reasonable. But I don’t have nothing to do with that, man. I just got to get guys ready ‘cause you ever notice the sharpest you are is when you’re a prospect coming up, or when you fighting in those amateur tournaments where you fighting three, four times in three or four days. You know why, ‘cause you’re fighting.

“So that’s why guys see their growth and then they in the pros and they wonder why they not getting no better, because they’re not fighting. The only way you can get better is if you got a trainer that you listen to and ya’ll got an exact program that you doing in between fights and you real dedicated, because if not you’re going to be stale and I think that’s why this era don’t produce as many great fighters ‘cause these guys get stale because they don’t fight enough, and on top of not fighting enough they don’t do the right things outside the gym and then you get stale.

“And it’s not all of their fault. It’s hard to stay in the gym where you don’t have nothing to look forward to. So it’s not always the fighter’s fault, it’s like the system of boxing is like weird now.”