While flyweight world champion Sunny Edwards was dealing with a very large amount of media obligations today at the official press conference for his Matchroom debut, bathing in the London sunshine shirtless and unashamed sat trainer Grant Smith.
Smith looks over his undefeated star on Saturday night when he takes on Chilean Andres Campos at Wembley Arena live on DAZN. Tempers flared at the head-to-head between the two fighters yesterday which reportedly saw members of both teams have some sort of verbal altercation. However, the mood Smith was in seemed relaxed as any man can be, taking time to enjoy The Great British Summer while Edwards courted a large media presence.
“We are good, I’m sat enjoying the sun while Sunny takes hours to do his interviews.” Grant said as I probed for a response to yesterday’s scenes at the face-off. “Matchroom are a very good outfit, we work with them with quite a few of our fighters.They always look after us and take very good care of us. This is the first time Sunny has been with them, and Sunny has been really impressed with how he has been treated.”
The talk has been big from both Edwards and his new promoter Eddie Hearn. Both sticking to the same script of making a statement against Campos to head into unifications with stablemate’s Jesse Rodriguez and Julio Cesar Martinez. With the added incentive and pressure upon signing with the country’s biggest promoter, had changes in the background been made?
“No change, just keeping it as we always do.” Smith answered. “We don’t feel like we have to prove anything to anybody. He makes a statement in every fight anyway, we are taking it as a normal fight. We are under no pressure, Sunny thrives under pressure anyway. We will just get out there, get the business done and execute the plan that we have got going. We don’t find anything tough, we just crack on in the gym week in, week out. Sunny is a true professional, he is always in the gym. Eddie has come in and made good offers, offered good fights, Eddie has then got the fights. There really is no pressure, we just crack on in our gym.
“Sunny is always busy in the gym even when he is not fighting. He’s never out of the gym that long even if he is away, maximum two or three weeks when he might have a holiday. He’s constantly sparring and he is always working. It is not as if he has been going stale or anything like that.”
Edwards comes up against an unknown quantity in Campos (15-0, 4 KOs). He comes to England as a near 10/1 underdog in the hope of becoming Chile’s first world champion.
“I think he [Campos] punches harder than his record states.” Smith said. “I think he is going to come hard. He’s going to try and set some traps, but I don’t think these traps are going to work. But, you never know in boxing. I do think that he will come hard and he will pay the price for coming hard.”
We came full circle to discuss the heated head-to-head with the pair which undoubtedly added some hype to this weekend’s flyweight showdown.
“He just left his cap on and it touched Sunny’s forehead, so Sunny just knocked it off.” He continued. “ Fighters are getting heated up, he’s had a bit of hassle off them all over the past 18 months, tweeting or something like that. That’s all it were, Sunny just knocked off his cap and told him what he fought.”
The bout with Campos seems to be in the way of Edwards’s long awaited unification, it was only an injury to fellow champion Jesse ‘Bam' Rodriguez that saw that fight not come to life. However, it is believed the American WBO world champion will be ringside on Saturday in London.
“Yeah, I think Bam is coming over here.” Smith added. “Obviously they were in talks and it has been put out there on social media that they have been negotiating and trying to set the fight up. Sunny will fight anybody, Eddie is good at his job and I am sure he will get something over the line and sorted. He is the best promoter in the world. If he can’t do it, nobody can do it.”
