While the specifics of the ageing process differ from person to person, there are two irrefutable facts by which we are all bonded: one, that the process starts the moment we are born, and two, that it will eventually end.
Until then age will mean different things at different times. It means nothing to us at the start, during the period in which we have no concept of time, but later it becomes a way of grouping us, initially at school, and to some extent controlling us. At 18, or 21, it then represents something like freedom or adulthood, with certain doors opened and various lessons taught but ignored. These lessons, which invariably come from older people, become lessons we understand too late, usually around the time when the birthdays we once wished away are now ominous threats; treated as though they are avalanches spotted in the distance. Soon, without warning, there are too many candles to fit on the cake and reminders, even for those who lie about their age, are found in every mirror and every attempt to stand up.
In boxing, age also means different things to different people at different times. If, for example, you are a boxer in one of the lower weight classes, the ardour of making weight year on year will typically guarantee that your shelf life will be shorter than that of, say, a heavyweight whose career has been spared the pain of extreme dieting and weight-watching. Along similar lines, a boxer who prioritised defence, or self-preservation, is likely to age better than the boxer who forever put the satisfaction of the crowd ahead of his own wellbeing. That is why someone like Bernard Hopkins can still win fights in his late forties, while men almost half his age struggle to see the punches coming, and find it even harder to take them.
Then, of course, you have someone like Sunny Edwards, a boxer whose style is predicated on elusiveness – and therefore preservation – but whose career is apparently now finished at the age of 28. That Edwards was quick to reveal following Saturday’s defeat to Galal Yafai and the news struck many as surprising, not least because 12 months ago Edwards appeared as though he was just getting started. Back then he had a world flyweight title, a promotional deal with Matchroom Boxing, and an elite rival in the form of Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez. Everything, it seemed, was moving in the right direction and, if you doubted it, Edwards, via a constant stream of social media posts, would tell you why you were wrong and he was right – about everything.
Such was his conviction, in fact, both in his own talent and his future, it was hard to not become intoxicated and fall for every word he said. It was largely for that reason that I wrongly predicted Edwards would outbox Rodriguez last December and why I ignored the evidence in favor of putting my blind faith in Sunny’s very capable hands. It was also for that reason the stoppage defeat to Rodriguez came as a bit of a shock, both to those who believed in Edwards’ unique gifts and presumably Edwards himself.
In 2024, he kept a much lower profile. He was a lot quieter on social media, removing his Twitter/X account altogether, and was now unable to preach with quite the same fire and conviction as before. Even if the two things happen to be unrelated, and perhaps they are, the defeat to Rodriguez will have hit a competitor like Edwards hard, particularly as so much of his persona was fuelled by the air of invincibility he had created alongside his unbeaten record. With that now gone, Edwards had been recast and redefined. Still a top fighter, he was no longer the dominant, all-conquering champion whose opinions, whether pertaining to other flyweights or day-to-day issues (again, he had an opinion on everything), would be heard and carried a degree of weight. There was, in other words, an aura about Edwards as an unbeaten boxer, one as quick to go as it is to arrive in the aftermath of a defeat.
Maybe this is something Edwards experienced and something with which he struggled coming to terms. He was also attempting to rebound as a flyweight, don’t forget, and flyweight is a division historically overlooked and undersold, which, for a fighter, makes a desire to compete even more important. As good as it was on paper, Edwards’ last fight, against Yafai in Birmingham, was not the kind of fight he would have envisaged a year after preparing to fight Rodriguez in Glendale, that’s for sure.
In many ways Edwards’ past 12 months bears comparison to the period of soul-searching “Prince” Naseem Hamed underwent following his defeat against Marco Antonio Barrera in 2001. That loss, although on a much grander scale than Edwards’ against Rodriguez, was damaging to Hamed on a level we, and maybe he, only came to appreciate with the passing of time. We know now that it marked the end of one version of Hamed – the unbeaten, terrifying puncher whom few could survive – and introduced a new one; a role Hamed, it turned out, had no interest in playing.
He tried, briefly, even returning in 2002 for a tepid 12-rounder against Manuel Calvo, but it just wasn’t there anymore. The motivation. The feeling. The point. He had, because of a single defeat, been turned into something and someone else and it was hard for Hamed to find the incentive to exist and function as merely his own tribute act.
Neither Hamed nor Edwards were necessarily “old” when they called it quits at 28, yet if you ever see pictures of either of them in vests and gloves as young boys, it becomes easier to grasp what “old” means in the context of their profession. To see one or the other in these photos is to see a journey of great discipline and restraint. You see the hope in the eyes of the boy and then see the death of that hope in the eyes of the man. Compare the two images and you start to understand why 28, especially for a man whose body has been reduced to nothing more than a weapon for two decades, might be considered a good age at which to start living; grow up. “I don’t have the same energy that I had for the sport; for the process,” said Edwards after Saturday’s loss. “For the first time ever I’ve been more thinking and concentrating outside of the sport. My family; my kids. I’ve been going through some stuff in my personal life that I’m trying to set up for the future.”
The good thing about retirement for a fighter like Edwards is that once you commit to it you are immediately young again. Why? Because in the real world, the one in which you are defined by more than just speed and power and athleticism, being 28 is no burden at all. To be 28, in fact, means you are the envy of many and that your life, your post-boxing life, is just getting started. All you need to do now is figure out how this life looks, what it entails, and how an “old” 28-year-old boxer can fully exploit their rebirth as a civilian.
After all, real life is no easier and no less demanding than life in the ring. If anything, it tends to be a lot harder, with real life dealing a boxer no favours on account of past accomplishments, nor immunity from the blows dealt out to everyone else going through the ageing process and unsure when the process will end.
The death of Israel Vazquez earlier this week should stand as evidence of this. At the time of his passing Vazquez was 14 years retired and, at 46, living life as a relatively young man. He had, we thought, done all his fighting – back when he was a three-time super-bantamweight champion – and had already grown old once. He had, in boxing terms, already died. He had, in retirement, then brought himself back to life; started again.
Yet this year Vazquez, at the age of 46, found himself struck by the blow nobody, whether boxer or prophet, ever sees coming. It aged him, it weakened him, and eventually the cancer took his life on December 2, three weeks from his next birthday on Christmas Day. This now means that the great Mexican spent more of his short life on earth as a fighter than he did as just a man, a husband, and a father. It also means that in death they will call him young again. “Forty-six,” they will say. “It’s no age.”
Read the full article here
