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Sunny Edwards delivers fearless performance to win flyweight world title

Edwards put on an impressive display to dethrone South Africa's long-reigning world champion and has rightly received the plaudits for his outstanding victory.

Sunny Edwards put on a masterclass and defeated Moruti Mthalane to become Britain's latest world champion.
The Croydon fighter impressed throughout and outpointed the South African via unanimous decision to win the IBF flyweight title.

The scorecards read 118-111, 120-108, 115-113. Mthalane, 38, tasted the first defeat of his career since being stopped by Filipino legend Nonito Donaire in 2008.

While there were signs of him troubling Edwards, it was too little too late for the two-time world champion who struggled to cope with the pace of "Showtime" in the first six rounds.
Edwards follows his brother Charlie as world champion, who won the WBC version in 2018 and made two title defences.
Speaking after the fight, promoter Frank Warren said it was a performance Floyd Mayweather would have been proud of.
"Me and Moruti were friends before, hopefully he's still my friend. I knew it would be hard. He was very good at closing the gap down," Edwards said.
"If I'm honest, I had it about 7-5, 8-4. The 120-108 didn't give him a chance, I wasn't a fan of that scorecard. But I felt like I deserved to win.
"It might not be pretty all the time, it might not be exciting all the time, but I'm very, very hard to beat.
"I hit him hard enough to keep him off me, but my God did he make me work there. My legs after that sixth round were tired like they've never been before."

The standout fight to make at flyweight is a unification with Mexico's heavy-hitting WBC titlist Julio Cesar Martinez - a fighter who has previously fought Charlie Edwards.
The fight, which was going in Martinez's favour, ended in a no contest.

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