Sunny Edwards took a little time to digest the question, even though he already knew the answer.
IBF flyweight champion Edwards has spoken about the possibility of boxing his brother, former WBC flyweight champion Charlie, before, but there are times when their sibling rivalry makes it logical, and other times when it becomes illogical.
“Do you know what it is?” Edwards considered. “First and foremost, my brother is my brother. I love him. But just like any brother relationship, we are very competitive. We’ve existed in a world where it’s boxing, it’s one on one. We can literally get in the ring, have a spar and argue over who we think is better. We’re very competitive. And for a long time, my brother would tell everyone I was better than him. He would tell them I’m the class. For a very long time, he didn’t even want to spar me or anything. So it’s a bit surprising now, and I don’t know what [trainer] Joe Gallagher has said to him with him hitting pads, or sparring people that ain’t me, but he’s got his newfound confidence – which I do like. I like it for him as well, because there was a long time where I think he just accepted that his brother was far better than him, and I do think the deeper root of this one is he understands that people don’t really take an interest in his career and what he’s doing and his posts etc etc. The most people have spoke about my brother in the last however many years since he’s been a world champion is when he called out his little brother, and that’s just sad in itself.”
Charlie recently explained that he wanted to fight Sunny, and with new trainer Joe Gallagher behind him, Charlie said it was something even their father had wanted to see, the brothers sharing a packed-out arena in a main event. Sunny, however, admits the sibling rivalry has followed them through the years and into boxing.
“We lived in a very competitive environment,” Sunny explained. “No matter what it was, me and my brother would be competing. Whether it’s Call of Duty, whether it’s FIFA, whatever it is, we’d be competing, we’re competitive. I don’t think we both would have existed as world champions in the same however many years from the same family if we weren’t ridiculously competitive with each other. That’s probably the reason we both got so far as we did, that we were outcompeting each other. We were running together, we were running against each other. I was trying to beat him, he was trying to beat me. We were sparring against each other, training together, we were trying to do more sets, more reps… We’ve grown up competing against each other and what, now just because I’m a world champion and he’s a former world champion we’ve got to stop competing because it offends people? I still love my brother, but I just make it my hellbent mission that at the end of my boxing career, everyone unanimously says I was the better brother, and if that offends you, I’m sorry.”
There is, of course, sibling rivalry and then there is ‘banter’ that can get out of hand. The Edwards boys have had their feuds over the years, but they remain best of friends and best of enemies.
“What we say to each other, and the conversations that we have, I guess normal people, people who aren’t us or our family, would take as really quite damning and be like ‘Oh my God,’” Edwards continued. “But with us, we are just what we are. We’re very competitive. From me being nine and him being 11, boxing is all we’ve known. It’s probably been a very long argument, me saying I’m going to come up and beat him, and then him being a bigger brother until he wasn’t a bigger brother anymore, it’s been a dialogue our whole life. My brother, for a long time, was my idol looking up. He’s always been the benchmark. Whatever he did was always very early and very good. He was on GB early, he was a European gold medallist as a schoolboy, he had his debut on Sky Sports, world champion… He’s always set a high bar, but at the same time, someone I always saw myself competing with. I was always capable of competing with him from an early age, so it always gave me that belief. If I didn’t have this mindset and he didn’t have this mindset, we probably wouldn’t be in the position we are today.”
Sunny Edwards is 19-0 (4) as a pro and boxes Andres Campos in Wembley Arena next month, Charlie Edwards is 17-1 (7) and last boxed in December 2021.
