Sunny Edwards will only consider fighting in the future if he feels his body has fully recovered from the toll inflicted by his 23-fight career.
The former IBF flyweight champion retired at the age of 28 after his defeat by Galal Yafai in November, when he looked little like the fighter who represented so appealing an opponent for Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez in December 2023.
Rodriguez inflicted not only the first defeat of Edwards’ fine career, but a medial orbital fracture, and against Yafai, 32 but by comparison a nine-fight professional, Edwards appeared to have little left to give.
He was stopped in six one-sided rounds, and immediately announced his retirement while revealing he had planned to do so “win, lose or draw”. He has since also spoken of the sense of relief that came with accepting that he had fought for the last time, and revealed the extent of the physical struggles he had long endured.
“Win, lose or draw I was doing that,” he repeated, to BoxingScene. “Genuinely. My body and my mind just needs a rest from the getting ready and competing, and that desire and that cliche – that eye of the tiger that I once had – for whatever reason, unbeknown to myself, really, it just don’t seem in me the same way. When you haven’t got that fire, then a boxing ring’s not the best place for you. So how good I am, and can be, and have been, I owe it to myself to not keep getting in the ring. It’s hard to accept yourself, knowing you’re not as good as you used to be.
“I’m not close-minded to anything in this world. However, I’ve got a high standard of myself; a high standard of what I’ve been capable of doing, and if I’m honest, I’ve been short of that for quite a little while now. I’ve managed to hide it better than people have really noticed – both close to me, and boxing fans. I don’t know if I’ll ever compete again, because there’s other stuff involved in the sport, and involved in my life, that I really do enjoy doing. I find myself getting more emotion, and more feeling on some other things now, than in the boxing ring. For the most part of my life – for over half of it – there wasn’t a single thing in boxing, outside of being in a boxing ring, that did that for me. So I don’t know.
“It’s not like I’m close-minded to [returning]. My main focus, really, is working on my health; working on myself; setting some foundations, and leveraging my boxing career the best I can with what opportunities and possibilities I have around me. There was getting to points in the last 12 months I was genuinely thinking that I could be getting more done and making more moves and covering more ground if I wasn’t having to stop for 10,12 weeks to prepare for a fight – and I don’t think that was the best mindset. Maybe I did it to myself, but one of the big pushes for getting into management, getting into commentary early, getting my trainer’s licence and helping alongside fighters’ corners – I didn’t know how long my body would keep this up for. I’ve been suffering with injuries, and fighting with them and getting injections in parts of my body – pain numbing, so I can fight – and ankles going… Just a lot, really. It started really getting a lot. I hurt from every single corner in this camp, throughout it. That weighed on me more than it ever has before.
“But, no excuses. I didn’t want to take anything away from Galal – win, lose or draw I was getting out of the ring. Following a win, maybe much more chance that at some point I’d return, but after that performance I felt almost like I was in someone else’s body.”
Edwards has already had an impact as a manager, attempted commentary, and worked fighters’ corners. He, similarly, is considering a future as a trainer.
“I knew going into the fight that my body weren’t, maybe for a few years now what I wanted it to be, [and was] getting progressively worse, but I still promised myself…” he trailed off. “I know I keep saying it, but I put such an importance on trying to paint a good picture of the flyweight division and making big fights and events that people are genuinely interested in. I did genuinely have belief that things were going to click into place – I needed them to – but that just never really happened. I didn’t show up at the races and I was trying to dig myself out of a hole from pretty much the first shot he threw. But look, no regrets. I’ve had a great career. I’ve given 20 years of my life competing; travelling around the world; giving my best. I haven’t had a season off. I’ve competed every single year since 11 years old. It’s sad, and it’s probably the hardest thing to accept, but I felt, most, relieved when the circus was done. After a loss, that mindset showed and told me everything I needed to know. I don’t think I’ve made the wrong decision.
“I’m quite excited for the future. Would I rule out ever stepping back in the ring? I probably wouldn’t. But at the same time I genuinely am in no rush, and if I don’t ever feel the level that I was, which I feel very, very far off from now, then I will never return. I don’t need boxing to make stuff happen – in the sense of competing. I enjoy the other parts of it and think I can make a difference in a lot of fighters’ careers, for the good, from the other side of the lens.”
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