Former IBF flyweight champion Sunny ‘Showtime’ Edwards 20-1 (4) is considering a move down in weight following the first loss of his professional career.
The 27-year-old Brit was stopped in nine rounds by now WBO and IBF 112-pound champion Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez 19-0 (12) at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona last Saturday night.
Edwards was competitive early but hard, accurate shots from Texan southpaw Rodriguez, 23, soon had his face lumped up and bleeding, and as the rounds progresses his condition only got worse. Late in the ninth frame a cracking left cross from Rodriguez sent Edwards face first to the canvas.
Edwards somehow beat the count but once back in the corner, his trainer Grant Smith wisely pulled the plug with his boxer trailing 83-87, 83-87 and 81-89 on the cards.
“I feel I’ve got loads of options,” Edwards said to Boxing News. “Genuinely, not this fight but my fight before, I actually weighed… less than a kilo above light flyweight [108-pounds].
“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.”
Edwards added that if Rodriguez moves up in weight as he has suggested, he could hang around at flyweight a little longer.
“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,” Edwards said.
“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.”
The only thing Edwards has ruled out is taking a tune-up bout to get back in the win column.
“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.
“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.”
