Review: Sunny Edwards vs Galal Yafai – “I don’t even want to be here”
Galal Yafai stopped Sunny Edwards in the sixth round to win the WBC Interim World Flyweight Championship at his hometown Birmingham, BP Pulse Live Arena.
Boxing fans witnessed two of the best flyweights the UK has to offer as former world champion, Sunny Edwards clashed with Olympic gold medalist, Galal Yafai.
This fight had plenty backstory with both fighters training together years ago in Team GB training camps. You could say animosity between the two began with Yafai being selected for international boxing qualifiers over Sunny Edwards eight years ago, reinforced with Edwards bringing this up in the build up to the fight.
The former flyweight champion came into Saturday with a point to prove.
Upon the opening bell of round one, Galal Yafai came out all guns blazing, landing numerous clean shots and combinations on the chin of Sunny Edwards. A start many would not have anticipated, throughout the opening three minutes Edwards simply had no answer to the pressure of Yafai, taking constant punishment right through the opening round.
Round two was a similar story, Galal Yafai working the body and the head with his left hand affectively, changing levels fluently, breaking down the former flyweight king. Edwards however did have some success this round, landing a couple clean backhands on the tricky southpaw. however, another round in the bank for Yafai, 20-18 unanimously on the scorecards no doubt.
Following the second round came an extraordinary but also quite saddening verbal exchange between Edwards and his lead coach, Chris Williams. where Sunny tells his corner “I don’t even want to be here man”, from a man who was once so ferocious with plenty grit, this was sad for many boxing fans to see.
Throughout the fourth and fifth rounds the Olympic gold medalist Galal Yafai continued to pour on relentless pressure with Sunny Edwards looking a shadow of his former self, his sharp footwork simply was not there, finding himself trapped in corners making it easy for Yafai to cut off the ring to land punishment onto Sunny, with Edwards showing little signs of life.
The referee stopped the contest in the sixth round, Sunny Edwards giving no answer to the Galal Yafai onslaught gave the referee no choice but to intervene, an end to quite a tough watch for many British Boxing fans.
Sunny Edwards announced his retirement after the fight. According to the former champion – win, lose or draw retirement was inevitable after the fight. Sunny had fallen out of love with the sport which is such a shame as he is such a talented fighter, and a pioneer of British Boxing.
