“The love of my life,” the promising welterweight, whose murder in a drive-by shooting on Saturday rocked the boxing community, calls his daughter Kayla in one post.
Kayla was a key reason why Brown, 25, an undefeated, national junior welterweight boxer with 16 knockouts in his 20-0 record – and clearly headed to the big time – refused entreaties to leave Chicago, his managers said Monday.
“The boxing community . . . is just shocked. World champions from all over the world are sending their condolences,” said Mike Cericola, who has managed him since he was a kid in the Chicago Park District.
The nationally known boxer is the latest statistic in the violence that has engulfed Chicago’s neighborhoods, with the city surpassing 700 homicides for the first time in two decades.
“When I first saw him in the ring, he was just a little scrawny thing, but you could see his talent, and that he worked hard,” Cericola said. “They fight as amateurs as little kids, and the older they get, they start looking at training professionally. Everybody wants to be the next Floyd Mayweather, but this actually was.”
Brown was sitting in a car on Saturday with a 19-year-old woman who picked him up from the gym after a late-night workout. They had just dropped off a third passenger, family members said.
That’s when a silver vehicle pulled up and bullets flew, striking Brown in the head and the woman in the leg, police said.
“We just have no clue about what this was. That’s the scary part about it,” she said. “His 3-year-old … And his girlfriend’s not doing so good. This is hard for all of us. We’re just trying to get together now and see how we can put him away really nicely.”
When Brown, of East Garfield Park, joined the park district boxing league, he found his passion and his pathway. The 6-feet, 140-pound contender boxed his way up through the amateurs and tournaments circuit until he became a national champion. He made the 2012 Olympics tryouts but didn’t make the team. By then, everyone knew he had mad skills.
“Ed Brown was one of the top 10 amateur fighters in the nation. He turned pro in 2012, and he was highly respected. Nobody else had his 20-0 record,” said Nate Jones, a former Olympic and professional boxer, and a close friend and assistant trainer to the legendary Mayweather.
“He was three fights away from fighting for the world championship. Three fights away,” Jones said. When Dunkin implored him to leave Chicago, Brown said he’d wait, citing his daughter and girlfriend. He wanted to make it so he could help his family.
“He was a good guy. He wanted to stay in the neighborhood where he was born and raised. He loved his daughter, and was very close to his family,” she said.
Click Here to Read Full Story