2020 Olympic flyweight gold medalist Galal Yafai (8-0, 6 KOs) faces the toughest test of his professional journey so far when he locks horns with former IBF flyweight champion Sunny Edwards (21-1, 4 KOs) in an all-British clash at BP Pulse LIVE in Birmingham, England this Saturday, shown live worldwide on DAZN.
Edwards, who holds a win over Yafai in the amateurs, is determined to become a two-time world champion after suffering the first loss of his career in a blockbuster unification clash with Jesse โBamโ Rodriguez at the Desert Diamond Arena in Arizona last December.
With the interim WBC world title on the line this weekend, the winner will go on to a likely world title shot in their next fight โ but Yafai insists he his solely focused on the job at hand and putting his long-standing rivalry with Edwards to bed once and for all.
โWe knew weโd get to this stage,โ said Yafai. โWe both had to do our bit. I became Olympic champion, and he became world champion. We were both on the trajectory to be fighting each other.
โI know he has a story about how he should have been picked for the Olympics, but the reality is I went to the Olympics, and then I went to the Olympics again and won Gold. So, it doesnโt matter to me.
โWhen I first started boxing, he was one of the first ones that beat me as an amateur, ABAโs at the time โ itโs just been brewing since then. Itโs not something that Iโm that assed about but Iโll say, โhe beat me on a split decisionโ. Iโll tell anyone. Youโre competing against the best and Sunny was the best in the country.
โRealistically, Iโve got more chance of knocking him out than he has of me, but anybody can be knocked out, and with those little gloves, everyone punches, so Iโve got to be careful and do things the right way.
โIโve got to be the best version of Galal Yafai. When he boxes heโs a bit more trickier and on the back foot. I come forward and bring pressure. Itโs two contrasting styles. I can knock him out, but it doesnโt mean that itโs going to happen.โ
