IT’S not so long ago that you’d spot Sunny Edwards at ringside, cheering on his brother Charlie, and vice-versa. Today, the pair are not speaking to each other, with reports suggesting a prize fight between the brothers could follow.
Both have said they would take the fight if it could be made, but Sunny’s claim in a recent Boxing News article that it is Charlie doing the chasing has been rejected by the older sibling.
Keen for his side of the story to be heard, Charlie told BN: “Smoke and mirrors is a liar. It’s funny because you should never believe everything that comes out of his mouth, it’s all over exaggerated and the majority of it is lies. But once you know him [you] see through the bullshit.”
Sunny suggested last week that the pair haven’t sparred for several years because he was getting the better of things. “When I was 14, 15, 16 I was mixing it with my brother who was three years older than me,” Sunny said. “At aged 18, he stopped ever wanting to spar me again. I wasn’t invited to spar him.”
However, Charlie this week sent BN photographs that confirm they were sparring each other as recently as August 2020 – at Sheffield’s Steel City gym – when Sunny was 24 and Charlie was 27. “If you check the date you will soon realise how much shit Sunny chats,” Charlie said.
Sunny also suggested that his recent move to Matchroom, Charlie’s former promoters, had stirred the pot further. “I think he’s [Charlie] a clout-chaser and that’s what this is about,” Sunny said. “It might have hurt him a little bit that I just signed with his old promoter [Matchroom] and he wanted a bit of attention. Who would begrudge him that? I’d hate to be my brother too.
Eddie Hearn and Sunny Edwards (Mark Robinson Matchroom Boxing)
“First and foremost, he needs to work his way up the rankings. He’s in the middle of obscurity at the moment, to be calling my name when I’m top of the game, world champion with a lot of career prospects and storylines.
“There’s too much in front of me and not enough in front of him. He wasn’t calling out his little brother when he was world champion, he didn’t give me a world title shot did he? And if he did, I would have taken it off him then. Cheeky c**t. And he knows it as well. If I ever get offered it, don’t think I’m turning it down but I don’t think I’ll get it offered.”
To that, Charlie responded: “Enough of the bullshit. When he’s ready to step up to bantamweight we can talk about fighting seriously. Until then he needs to focus on cleaning up the flyweight division. But I’m ready to have negotiations wherever and that’s the end of it, no clout-chasing from my end!”
Curiously, it is eight years ago this week when Sunny made one of his first appearances in BN as a 19-year-old amateur. Though the sibling rivalry was clear back then, so too was the respect. “It’s always good having him [Charlie] there now and now I’m a senior he’s a proper sparring partner. We go full tilt. When I was younger we couldn’t do that. I have the best sparring I could ask for,” Sunny said back then before admitting that following in his brother’s footsteps gets “annoying because I get it a lot, it’s all about my brother. I do get that a lot but it’s because he’s there, he’s helped me through it.”