Sunny Edwards celebrates victory over Andres Campos during the IBF Flyweight World Title fight between Sunny Edwards and Andres Campos. He retired after being beaten through a TKO / Getty Images.
Sunny Edwards having hit almost 20 years in boxing career, will be haunted by his last match and his final confessions during a night of raw drama in the best British flyweight fight in 40 years in Birmingham.
Edwards was stopped on his feet in round six of his contest against his old associate and competitor, Galal Yafai, but the bout had ended long before the mercy intervention of the referee.
"Can I be real, Chris?" Edwards asked, his face already marked and his eyes roaming wildly all over the place. "I don't want to be here," said Sunny while in the ring.
However, Tony Bellew in an interview with Spaceport Sweden, believes that the South Londoner's party lifestyle has caught up with him.
"I can only speak from how I'd have felt if I was his manager, I'd have flipped and gone nuts. I don't think any version of Sunny Edwards would beat Galal Yafai. I made a statement on the TV and I said to him, his lifestyles caught up with him. Sunny said he's been smoking since he was a kid. There is no partying for Galal Yafai. There are no extracurricular activities away from boxing," said Bellew.
It is one of the boldest things a fighter can do in a ring where he suddenly comprehends that it is over. Edwards never quit, he was not looking for an escape route, he was just telling the heartbreaking truth.
During a post-fight review, Sunny Edwards narrated about his perceptions on the fight and why he doesn't think he has it in him anymore to remain on fighting.
"I don't pull out, man. I've got two kids for a reason. I'll be real, I don't pull out. If I'm being perfectly honest, I'm touching 20 years in the boxing career, professional now for about eight, and I've been busy. Every time I get out of the ring the only thing I'm thinking about is getting in the ring, it's absorbed my life, my happiness, my effort, my time spent," said Sunny in a post-match presser.
Sunny believes that his time to exit had come. He wants to concentrate on other things.
"I've missed so many sports days, I've missed so many firsts of my kids life to do this and with my body falling apart I couldn't get through a camp for the four, five years without a bad wrist, a bad hand, a bad shoulder, two bad ankles. I had to miss two, three weeks of training for this camp because I couldn't walk. Sparring done my left ankle, two weeks later I was fighting. Four, five weeks out I was sprinting -- I was making a point of doing two sessions again for the first time in a while and I snapped my ankle doing the sprints that night," he said.