The last time Galal Yafai boxed Sunlit Edwards, he had to take annual leave from his 9-5 factory job. “I wasn’t even a real boxer back then,” he says. “I was just having fun at that point.”

A decade on and the pair are about to collide in perhaps the most vital British flyweight clash in history, and there is no leave application form in sight.

It was April 2015 and Yafai had barely heard the name Sunlit Edwards when he arrived at Echo Arena in Liverpool for the semifinals of the ABA tournament. Yafai lost in Saturday’s competition and Edwards defeated Joe Maphosa in the final 24 hours, but the seed was sown for a rivalry that would last almost a decade.

They met again in Sheffield later that year as they both planned their path to the 2016 Rio Olympics. However, of course, there was only one place for the 49 kg category and it was Yafai who took it after winning the qualification.

It’s a moment that seems to irritate Edwards, considering he was the one who won their earlier competition. But Yafai, never one to get flustered, smiles when asked to tell his side of the story.

“I went to tournaments and won,” he says. “I improved because I quit my job and fought seven or eight times a year. Before that it only happened two or three times a year, so I just improved very quickly. I went from boxing Sunlit in the ABA and taking it seriously to fighting the No. 1 Cuban in the world and having really tough fights with them.

“Nothing against Sunlit, but he lost in the ABA this year as well. Sunlit lost in the finals to a guy named Kiaran MacDonald, so Sunlit knows better than anyone that you can get beat any day by split decision or whatever.

“He lost in the Olympic year to an English kid. If that happens, then he shouldn’t have left and I shouldn’t have left, it should have been someone else. He doesn’t seem to tell anyone about his loss to Kiaran MacDonald. He knows better than anyone else.

While their time together in the UK was somewhat fleeting in the grand scheme of their careers, it was long enough for them to share what Edwards described as “hundreds” of rounds of sparring. But while Edwards nestled at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield to plow a lonely furrow as a professional, Yafai stayed with Great Britain for two Olympic cycles, the second of which won gold.

Yafai’s decision to start his career with GB’s director of performance Rob McCracken and continue his training in Sheffield also drew criticism from Edwards, who suggested that using the lottery-funded facility gave him an unfair advantage. “McCracken doesn’t pay for his gym,” Edwards said earlier this year. “He receives the best gym in the country, strength and conditioning equipment, an indoor and outdoor treadmill, saunas, steam rooms, massages, and physiotherapy classes for free. You name it, they’ve got it. He can put Sunlit Edwards into their system and they’ll have every fight I’ve ever had in a British 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. All I need to run is a ring, a bag and my legs. I know Sunlit said I’m making the best of it and that I can watch my sparring. Just watching my sparring doesn’t support. That won’t make me win tonight. To me, that’s really a lot of crap. The gym is a great gym, but I just need a bag and a ring.

He also disagrees with the claim that McCracken always favored him. “Let’s not get it twisted, I’m a flyweight,” he says with a laugh. “I was 28 when I won gold at the Olympics. Rob won’t be a millionaire from me, I’ll tell you that. Rob had Carl Froch and Anthony Joshua. I don’t think when he first saw me, a 100-pound, 150-centimeter elevated little man, he thought, “Yes, this is my way out.” For Sunlit to think that Rob favors me, I think he would prefer a heavyweight that would make him a lot of money.

“Honestly, when I turned professional I thought I would go to America to train with someone, but I thought I got along with Rob and he’s a straight guy. I had confidence in him and thought I’d try it out and see what he wanted to do. It just really happened. I said I’d like to stay there and train with him, and he replied, “We’ll see how everything goes.”

So far it’s gone as well as possible. Yafai is 8-0, 6 KOs and was on the right track from the start, making his debut over 10 rounds against the talented Carlos Bautista in February 2022. He ended it with 2-11 in the fifth over. Still, despite being three years older than Edwards at 31, the southpaw can’t match his opponent’s professional experience.

Surrey-born Edwards, who has spent most of his adult life in Sheffield, is 21-1, 4 KOs and a former world champion with four successful defenses and a reputation as one of the best in the division. That’s why selecting Edwards as his opponent in his first 12-round fight is a bold move on Yafai’s part.

“I think it’s time because I feel better,” he explains. “My team around me also knows that I am better than him.

“I don’t want to go all out on him and say I beat him in sparring, but if Sunlit had beaten me in sparring, the fight wouldn’t have happened at all, so it’s really uncomplicated. Of course, we sparred in the amateur category, but also before my debut.

“When I turned pro, I went to his gym and we sparred for about a month. We sparred 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, so I understood what he meant because he was the world champion at the time and I hadn’t even made my debut yet. I really shouldn’t judge him, but it was a good sparring match.

“But sparring means nothing. This doesn’t mean that if sparring is comfortable for me, I will win this fight. Fighting is the whole thing, it’s a different thing, you have to rise to the occasion. We’ll see tonight, but if I had been beaten during sparring, this fight wouldn’t have happened, trust me.”

The interim WBC flyweight title is at stake at the BP Pulse Arena in Birmingham, despite Kenshiro Teraji only winning the full belt last month. Still, the Second City winner will likely get a chance to fight the champion at some point in 2025. Yafai doesn’t mind.

“I just don’t look too far into the future,” he says. “I don’t even know why there was a provisional title for this film. I don’t care either. I’m not thinking about the Japanese champion or anyone else. Let me get past Sunlit, this obstacle, and then maybe I’ll think about who’s next and what titles will be available, because this could all end quickly if I don’t beat Sunlit next week. Then I’m five hurdles back. Let me get past Sunlit and then we’ll see what Eddie Hearn and the team want to do.

If he loses, I don’t know what he’ll do, and if he wins, I don’t know what he’ll do. It’s either going to be shit for him or for me.

BOXING is the Wild West. Or rather, as legendary journalist Jimmy Cannon once said, “Boxing is the red lightweight district of professional sports.”

In any case, it is a sport that deserves the utmost integrity and oversight, protecting competitors from the catastrophic risks associated with their craft.

And yet, in the absence of an overarching governing body to set standards, after all these years there is no effective deterrent when an athlete’s safety is compromised by the exploit of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).

Instead of addressing this issue with a high degree of consideration and urgency, the sport has, quite astonishingly, strayed even further from a place of purity where, still, despite the best efforts of those who want to effect change, the rules enforced by each committee remain fundamentally unclear.

Anyone not connected to boxing will ask why Ryan Garcia, an athlete banned by the Up-to-date York State Athletic Commission earlier this year, was given a chance to remain lively.

Of course, his next fight, which will take place on December 30, will only be an exhibition and not a professional fight. Despite this, the 26-year-old will be financially rewarded at a time when his so-called penalty.

What’s more, it’s somewhat astonishing that Garcia, who tested positive for ostarine following his controversial fight with Devin Haney, only received a one-year ban.

As with most scorching fighters, his defense was that trace amounts of the substance were found in his system, indicating that he didn’t actually have an artificial advantage over Haney. However, this excuse, even though it has been used many times, only seems to raise further questions.

First, how did the substance end up in his system? And, perhaps more importantly, what if Garcia had used microdosing techniques – taking smaller doses of ostarine throughout training camp – to circumvent the tests?

In other sports, these questions would be addressed by the governing body responsible for making an informed decision about what happens if an athlete tests positive for PEDs. However, in boxing, a fighter who has been banned by the commission is given the freedom to explore other options – hence Garcia’s exhibition.

This is a problem that fans have tried to deal with, but whose complexity only creates more frustration.

Ultimately, the solution is clear: we need a recognized organization that will have jurisdiction over the entire sport. However, given boxing’s archaic structure, this demand is, well, quite unrealistic.

However, instead of burying our heads in the sand, shouldn’t we pave a path that will at least lead us to a more desirable state of affairs?

Boxing newsafter all, it was based on the same ambition – to see boxing as a good, tidy sport – when John Murray founded its flagship publication in 1909.

That’s why now, more than ever, it’s critical that Murray’s words are at the epicenter of the sport’s fight against PEDs.

As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest problems with drug testing is that once a fighter is found guilty, his punishment is rarely severe enough to discourage other fighters from following suit.

And this can actually be largely explained by the lack of coherence between individual committees.

But what if the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA), a trusted organization widely considered the gold standard in drug testing, actually had the authority to act on its findings?

In this sense, every commission around the world, whether they like it or not, would be obliged to adopt VADA’s position on PEDs.

Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but which other organization has the authority to take on such a huge responsibility?

In turn, VADA would be able to alleviate some of the pressure that individual commissions are currently under by eliminating the drawn-out disputes into which militants are often drawn.

Take for example the situation between Conor Benn and the British Boxing Board of Control. Would it instead be wiser for VADA to enforce the ruling based on its own findings?

This way, at least we would know that a group of experts – with extensive knowledge of drug testing – made a decision based solely on scientific evidence, whether anyone agrees with it or not.

Of course, getting two organizations to agree on something is never simple in any industry, let alone boxing.

However, if the world’s leading commissions trusted VADA and agreed to support any rulings made, then boxing would certainly be in a much healthier place.

That said, the legal ramifications that have emerged from the various failed tests conducted in recent years are a very different story, potentially giving VADA less incentive to continue to boost its involvement in boxing – a sport that continues to amaze even the most desensitized fighters. fans.

Last week I held the iconic boxing glove in my hands.

It was a relic of time, part of boxing’s opulent history, a gauntlet of infamy, and it seemed impossibly lightweight for such a ponderous object. Airy and lightweight in my hands. It is already desiccated, aged and one of the most stunning facilities in our industry.

This glove was once worn by Cassius Clay on his left hand during his fight with Henry Cooper at Wembley Stadium in 1963. Yes, a glove with a tear in the seam, a glove that has become part of our folklore. There are so many stories that it is complex to combine two stories into one whole.

It seems like everyone in boxing has seen the photo of Clay being thrown on his ass at the end of the fourth round; in the black and white photo you can clearly see the tear in the seam, the lining sticking out, Clay’s eyes are wide open and his future is frozen at this point.

The bell rings and a few seconds later, Angelo Dundee in Clay’s corner goes to work. Dundee noticed a slight tear at the end of the first round; at the end of the fourth, as Clay still dazedly sits down, Dundee tears open the rip and starts screaming about the cut glove. He wants to take some time to get his fighter through the next round. At the center of the storm was a glove, the same one I held last week. Like I said, so compact and so huge at the same time.

“Cassius looked like he had nothing to do with it anymore,” Dundee always said. There was pandemonium at Wembley and in the ring. Dundee brings out the table salt and shakes Clay before soaking him and punching him. This is a pivotal moment in the life and times of Muhammad Ali – he must win.

And then Dundee uses her magic to facilitate save her guy. And that’s where the stories begin – it all started with Dundee putting a finger or two into that glove. He needed a little extra time to facilitate his boxer, and there are many versions of the “time” he needed. We love unbelievable boxing stories, and the timeline of split glove events has become unbelievable over the years.

“I saw a compact cut along the seam of the boxing glove,” Dundee said. “I put my finger in the crack, helping her. Now it was a bigger split.”

Referee Tommy Little and Teddy Waltham of the British Boxing Board of Control inspected the glove. Dundee builds time by demanding fresh gloves. The glove was never changed, it’s part of a fantastic story where Clay has five minutes to recover: It never happened.

“I examined the glove and I’m sure it was a natural tear in the seam,” Waltham said, and the quote appeared in the newspapers the next day. And this is an significant quote that cannot be ignored.

Meanwhile, Dundee is fighting for time at cornerback. “Sure I wanted a fresh pair of gloves, but hopefully not too soon.” Fresh gloves were found, ready in case they needed to be replaced at the end of the fifth round. The drama in that ring from the moment Cooper’s left hook landed at the end of the fourth round to the moment the bell rang for round five was unbearable.

In the fifth, as the action begins, it’s obvious that Clay’s head has cleared. One photo shows the polished and clear knuckle portion of the left glove and there is a perceptible cut along the edge, down the seam. Seconds later, Cooper is slashed and slashed, with blood everywhere. Little needs to step in; Clay survived and triumphed, and the story of the gauntlet begins on a bloody night.

Copper is saved at 2:25 of the fifth round, his face is blurred, but his resistance remains. The blood covering his face and torso and the left hook from the fourth fighter quickly become a distant, desperate moment in his boxing life. “I have no regrets,” Cooper repeated until his death. He loved Ali, they loved each other, but that night he was so close to glory. I never once believed him when he said he had “no regrets.” The glove is a reminder of all the regrets he never had.

This is also the glove that was at the center of Ali’s exhibition; in a glass case on opening night at the O2 in London, the Bellagio in Las Vegas and the Beverley Center in Los Angeles. Millions of eyes gazed at this minuscule glove, once red and brilliant. More tours are planned, and the gauntlet I held last week will return to the heart of the exhibition; it remains a great reminder of the man and a direct physical connection to him.

Now we just need to find the shoes Julius Francis was wearing when he met Mike Tyson in Manchester in 2000. “I think so [Kellie] Maloney donated it to a charity,” Francis told me recently.

They should be effortless to spot – white shoes, spattered with blood, size 14, with the Daily Mirror logo on the sole. No confusion; just like Clay’s glove – the tear in the seam burns as brightly as a newspaper logo and it’s strenuous to tear yourself away from all the facts.

And finally, how long did it take for Dundee to buy its fighter? Who cares, it’s a great story, one of our rituals. Cooper says minutes, others say less than a minute, and some, like me, think it was seconds.