Fans were left stunned after boxer Sunny Edwards declared “I don’t want to be here” before his corner ordered him back into the ring.
TV microphones picked up the 28-year-old Londoner making the admission, as he suffered a one-sided stoppage loss to 2020 Olympic gold medallist Galal Yafai, who had previously fought on Anthony’s Joshua’s undercard – immediately retiring from the sport after the fight in Birmingham on Saturday.
The interaction between Edwards, who was tasting defeat for just the second time in his professional career, and his corner that left fans shocked during the bout. After taking a battering, a trainer asked the fighter: “Have you got it in your legs to keep moving?” To which the former flyweight champion replied: “Do you want me to be real? I don’t want to be here.” The coach, though, urged him to get back in the ring in a foul mouthed tirade, saying: “Don’t be f*****g stupid lad, stop f*****g feeling sorry for yourself right now. Stop feeling f*****g sorry for yourself because you’ve had one f*****g bad round.”
And that left fans on social media horrified, as they urged Edwards’ team to listen to their fighter. One fan commented: “The moment he utters those words, the trainer should have thrown the towel in, this is very sad to see and it’s time to pack it in all together.” And another added: “That’s hard to see. Surely the corner can see his head has gone there. They have a duty of care.”
Speaking after the fight, Edwards announced his retirement and revealed the toll the sport had taken on his body – saying: “I’ll be real, if I won the fight, I was going into the sunset. This is the last thing that I wanted to do, get that scalp of the Olympic champion. If I’m being perfectly honest, my body’s falling apart. I’ve got bad ankles, I’ve got bad wrists, I’ve got bad shoulders, I’ve got a bad back – everything about me is bad at this moment.”
Yafai, meanwhile, moved within touching distance of a world title shot after the referee stepped in to prevent any more punishment for Edwards.
Yafai who won gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games but lost to Edwards on a split decision when the pair fought as amateurs in 2015, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I was scared going into camp, worried what Sunny could do to me. I sparred him, he was hard to spar, he’s beaten me before, he’s been the man in the division, so I had to train as hard as I could to compete with him.” But there was no such competition this time during the fight, as the 31-year-old dominated his opponent until the sixth round stoppage.