Sunny Edwards will be haunted by his final fight and his final words during a night of raw drama in the best British flyweight fight in 40 years in Birmingham on Saturday night.
Edwards was stopped on his feet in round six of his fight against old friend and rival, Galal Yafai, but the fight had finished long before the mercy intervention. The stoppage by Lee Every, the referee, was perfect.
Yafai was having just his ninth fight and never lost a second of any round, forcing Edwards from corner to corner and placing him under relentless pressure. The win was not a shock, but the nature of the winner was totally unexpected.
At the end of round two, Edwards sat down in front of his new cornerman, Chris Williams, and made one of the most harrowing single-sentence statements a boxer can make.
“Can I be real, Chris?” Edwards asked, his face already marked and his eyes roaming wildly all over the place. “I don’t want to be here.”
It is one of the bravest things a boxer can do in a fight where he suddenly realises that it is over. Edwards never quit, he was not looking for an escape route, he was just telling the heartbreaking truth. Edwards has always been open about his feelings, his troubles away from the ring and the savage nature of the sport.
He went out for rounds three, four, five and six and took a steady and calculated beating. He never turned away, he never stopped trying but it was desperate stuff. Edwards could have dropped his head to quit at any moment from that deathless declaration and nobody would have moaned. He never did and that takes immense courage. Williams in the corner did his best to keep his broken fighter in the game; it was also the right thing to do and Williams deserves praise not criticism. There is very little time for mercy and compassion in a boxer’s corner during a fight of such importance. That might sound heartless and that’s because it is heartless. It’s also true.
At the bitter end, Edwards said that it was his last fight, said his body can no longer take the camps and the fights. However, he is only 28, it was just his second loss and less than a year ago he was a world champion. He can take a rest, heal his heart and body and look at his options; retirement is certainly one of them. The boxing game is the harshest of sports, an unforgiving occupation where men and women have to make life-changing decisions all the time.
Yafai was quite brilliant, punching the fight, resistance and desire out of Edwards from the very first bell. It was calculated pressure, smart and forceful, and Edwards was denied the space he craves to work. Edwards was forced to try and stand and fight from the opener and that was always going to be his downfall.
The winner left the ring with the WBC’s interim flyweight belt, but it was about more than a glitzy trinket; Edwards beat Yafai nine-years ago in the amateur code, but Yafai was selected for the 2016 Olympics. It was a plot that was always thick enough to deliver something special. Edwards won the IBF flyweight world title in 2021 and just four months later, Yafai, at his second Olympics, won the gold medal. It was a rich, rich storyline.
It was just Yafai’s ninth fight and his first scheduled for twelve rounds; Yafai is a young 31, having been protected from gruelling long-distance fights by his five or six years at the very top of the amateur sport. Yafai was just too sharp, fresh and powerful for Edwards – Yafai looked like a kid and Edwards, at the end, was bruised and sunken and looked ancient. It must be said that there were no firm rumours before the first bell that there was anything wrong with Edwards; the reality is that Yafai was just far too good on the night and Edwards was overwhelmed. As we say in boxing: Edwards got old overnight.
Yafai has options and some are difficult fights, but he started Saturday night’s fight as an outsider and his Olympic run of five wins was also against the odds. “I might get the respect now,” he said. He certainly deserves it. He might just be right now one of the most exciting fighters in the world. A golden kid caught between prospect and star. If he was an American, under the same conditions, and he had brutally beaten Edwards, we would be raving. It is, make no mistake, Galal’s time and a great time to be a flyweight.
