Sunny Edwards apparently isn’t too interested in tune-up fights after experiencing the first loss of his career.
The London native fell short of his goal to unify the IBF and WBO flyweight titles against Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez last Saturday night, after Rodriguez stopped him in the ninth round at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
Edwards, who trash talked his way through the promotion, was humble in defeat, giving full credit to Rodriguez for his decisive performance.
In an interview conducted not long after his bruising loss, Edwards spoke about his next steps, including the possibility of dropping down to the junior flyweight limit.
“I feel I’ve got loads of options,” Edwards told Boxing News. “Genuinely, not this fight but my fight before, I actually weighed … less than a kilo above light flyweight (108 lbs). I know I can make (the light flyweight limit), I was doing that comfortably. It’s probably where I can really drop down especially and look to fight. As the IBF champion no longer obviously, I think I’ve had a good regard with the IBF. Also a fight with me probably makes it a lot easier to make because it’s more a much bigger purse for these sorts of fights with someone like me who’s already been built up and been in big events, headlined however many fights and who can sell and market a fight quite well. I could do that.
“Still I think depending on what Bam does, I don’t know if he’s going to stay or if he’s going to go up there’s options still down here, at flyweight. I’d go anywhere. I feel like everything is an option. It’s just the conversations—Eddie Hearn’s still my promoter. So whatever conversation he wants to have with me about what’s next.”
Edwards rejected the notion that he needed a morale booster for his next fight.
“Real fight only,” Edwards said. “I don’t need confidence [boosters]. I don’t need stepovers in between. Just put me straight back in the deep end. Losing to one great fighter doesn’t make me any less of a great fighter. Only a slightly different day, things could have gone a slightly different way, whether that would’ve went my way, I don’t know. That’s yet to be seen.
“Yeah, man, I’m still very confident in my future and my career prospects. I know how I felt in there today and I don’t think I was completely outclassed. I just think that things didn’t go right for me, maybe on a night it needed to.”
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.