BY DECLAN TAILOR
THE LAST time Galal Jafai boxed Sunny Edwards he had to take a year off from his 9-5 factory job. “I wasn’t even a real boxer back then,” he says. “At that point I was just dosing.”
Fast-forward a decade and the pair are set to collide in perhaps the most significant British flyweight clash of a generation, with no holiday claim form in sight.
It was April 2015 and Jafai had barely heard the name Sunny Edwards when he arrived at Liverpool’s Echo Arena for the ABA semi-finals. Yafai lost his competition by division on Saturday and Edwards defeated Joe Maphosa in the final 24 hours later, but the seeds were sown for a rivalry that would last almost a decade.
Later that year they were reunited in Sheffield as they both planned their journey to the Rio Olympics in 2016. However, there was of course only one 49kg place and Jafai filled it after winning the qualifiers.
It’s a moment that seems to annoy Edwards, given that he won their earlier contest. But Jafai, never one to get angry, laughs when asked to tell his side of the story.
“I was going to tournaments and winning,” he says. “I improved because I quit my job and was fighting seven or eight times a year. Before it was only two or three times a year, so I improved quickly. I went from boxing Sana in the ABA and taking it half-seriously to fighting the #1 Cuban in the world and fighting them really close.
“I have nothing against Sunny, but he also lost in the ABA that year. Sunny lost in the final to a guy called Ciaran MacDonald, so Sunny knows better than anyone that any day you can get beaten by a split decision or whatever.
“He lost in the Olympic year to an English kid here. If that’s how it goes then he shouldn’t have gone and I shouldn’t have gone, it should have been someone else. He doesn’t seem to have told anyone that he lost to Ciaran MacDonald. He knows better than anyone.”
Although their time together in GB was fairly short-lived in the grand scheme of their careers, it was long enough for them to share what Edwards described as ‘hundreds’ of sparring rounds. But while Edwards jetted off to England’s Sheffield Institute of Sport to plow a solitary furrow as a professional, Yafai stayed with GB for two Olympic cycles, the second of which he won gold.
And Yafai’s decision to start his professional career with GB performance director Rob McCracken and continue to train at Sheffield has also drawn criticism from Edwards, who suggested that using the lottery-funded relief gave him an unfair advantage. “McCracken doesn’t pay for his gym,” Edwards said earlier this year. “He gets the best gym in the country for free, strength and conditioning equipment, indoor running track, outdoor running track, saunas, steam rooms, massage, physio. Just sayin’, they got it. He can knock Sunny Edwards into their system and they’ll have every single sparring match I’ve had in the GB ring on TV. Are you telling me it’s a level playing field?’
Another smile from Yafai. “I don’t care where I train,” he says. I just need a ring, bag and legs to run. I know Sunny said that I get the best of this and that, and I have to watch my couples. I look at my spars in the back is not s**t. They’re not going to make me win tonight. To me, that’s really s**t. The gym is a great gym, but I just need a bag and a ring.”
He also disagrees that McCracken always favored him from the beginning. “Let’s not get it twisted – I’m a fly heavy,” he says, laughing. “I was 28 years old when I won gold at the Olympics. Rob won’t be a millionaire than me, let me tell you. Rob had Carl Froch and Anthony Joshua. I think when he first saw me, 49kg, 5ft 4in, the little man thought, ‘Yeah, that’s my way out’. For Sunny to think that Rob is favoring me, I think he’d rather favor a heavyweight that would make him a ton of money.
“To be honest, when I turned pro I thought I’d go to America to train with someone, but I thought I got on with Rob and he’s a straight guy. I had that trust with him and thought I’d give it a go and see what he wanted to do. It really happened. I said I’d like to stay there and train with him and he said: ‘We’ll see how it goes’.
So far it has been going as well as possible. Jafai is 8-0, 6 KOs and has been on the fast track since the start, making his 10-round debut against the fit Carlos Bautista in February 2022. He finished him after a 2-11 fifth bout. Still, despite being three years older than Edwards at 31, the southpaw can’t match his opponent’s professional experience.
Surrey-born Edwards, who spent most of his adult life living in Sheffield, is 21-1, 4 KOs and is a former world champion with four successful defenses and a reputation as one of the best in the division. That makes it a bold move for Yafai to choose Edwards as his opponent in his first 12-round bout.
“I think it’s time because I think I’m better,” he explains. “My team around me knows that I am better than him.”
“I don’t want to kid him and say I beat him in sparring, but if Sunny had beaten me in sparring, the fight wouldn’t have happened, so it’s really simple. Of course, we sparred as amateurs, but also before my debut.
“When I turned pro, I went to his gym and we sparred for about a month. We would spar twice a week for a month, doing 10 rounds. That’s 20 rounds a week for a month, and then again in 2023. I think I judged well what he was, because at that time he was world champion and I hadn’t even made my debut. Really, I shouldn’t be putting a glove on him, but it was a good sparring match.
“But sparring means nothing.” That doesn’t mean I will win the fight if I was comfortable sparring. Fighting is one thing, another thing, you have to focus on the occasion. We’ll see in the evening, but if I had been beaten in sparring, there wouldn’t have been a fight, believe me.”
On the line at Birmingham’s BP Pulse Arena is the WBC Interim Flyweight Title, despite Kenshiro Teraji winning the full belt only last month. Even so, the winner of the Second City will likely secure a shot at the championship at some point during 2025. Jafai doesn’t mind either way.
“I just don’t look too far ahead,” he says. “I don’t even know why there’s a temporary title for this one.” I don’t really care either. I’m not thinking about the Japanese champion or whoever. Let me get over Sunni, that hurdle, and maybe I’ll think about who’s next or what titles are available because it can all be over so quickly if I don’t get over Sunni next week. Then I’m five hurdles back. Let me get past Sunny and then we’ll see what Eddie Hearn and the team want to do.
“If he loses, I don’t know what he does, and if he wins, I don’t know what he does.” It’s either going to be s**t for him or for me.”