Sunny Edwards (21-2, 4 KOs) announced his retirement after losing to Galal Yafai (9-0, 7 KOs) by a sixth-round technical knockout on Saturday night in their fight for the WBC interim flyweight title at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
“I Don’t Want To Be Here”
The beginning of the end tonight came in the fifth round when Yafai unloaded with a barrage of punches against a trapped Sunny, who was pinned to the ropes, unable to break out due to being forced in place by the size of the much larger man.
In the sixth, Yafai bulled Sunny to the ropes again and teed off with an unanswered flurry, leaving the referee with no choice but to step in and halt the contest. The time of the stoppage was at 1:10 of the sixth round.
Early Signs Of Trouble
Yafai, 31, had Sunny in trouble in the opening seconds of the first round, unloading on him with a storm of punches that had the former IBF flyweight champion in trouble. Sunny made it out of the ring but looked in trouble in the second round. In between the second and third, Sunny told his corner, “I don’t want to be here.”
His trainer tried to give him a pep talk, but he didn’t respond in the subsequent rounds. Sunny looked mentally disengaged and unmotivated, and he did not show the eagerness for combat that he’d displayed in the past. The confidence had been hammered out of him in his ninth-round stoppage defeat against Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez last year on December 16th.
That was a similar fight to the one tonight. Sunny fought a much bigger and stronger bam. He couldn’t match up size-wise or in the power department. Tonight was the same exact thing. Yafai won on size alone.
As big as he was, he should have been fighting at featherweight against the likes of Rafael Espinoza instead of Edwards. It was unbelievable how much bigger Yafai was than Sunny tonight. That would explain why Yafai looked so drained at Friday’s weigh-in. He looked terrible cutting down to 112, like a stick figure.
Edwards just didn’t have the size or the power to compete against the gargantuan-sized Yafai, who looked like a featherweight [126 lbs] inside the ring tonight.
There was no way that the tiny Sunny, 28, could deal with the bigger Yafai, who used his size by pulling him to the ropes repeatedly and keeping him there by giving hard shoves.
Yafai’s Humble Victory
“Sunny is a great champion, but I had to train my a** off for him. I was worried going into camp, knowing how good Sunny was,” said Yafai to Matchroom Boxing following his sixth-round knockout win over Sunny Edwards tonight.
“That’s how I always approach it. I wanted to test him out,” said Yafai about why he started so fast in round one. “I think people underrated me. I don’t want to brag too much, but I won an Olympic gold [2020]. I was up against the best boxers in the world. The Kazakhs, the Cubans, and great boxers like Sunny. So, I was used to that style.
“It was just my night tonight. Maybe on another night, Sunny would have beat me. Sunny is a technical boxer; he’s at the top. He’s a former world champion. He’s #1 in Ring Magainze. he got there for a reason. We had great spars, but fights are different.
“Winning a gold in the Olympics is the best achievement I can ever do, but tonight was a better feeling beating Sunny than actually standing on the podium. That’s just how good Sunny is,” said Yafai.
