It’s the eve of another important fight, and Galal Yafai could not be more relaxed about it.
The 2020 Olympic champion, who is nine fights into his professional career at flyweight is relaxed as ever and, in conversation with BoxingScene, sighs in his laidback Midlands accent: “Yeah, it’s just a fight, you know. Obviously there’s pressure in winning in my home city and fighting against a good fighter.
“I’m expected to win for people that don’t really know who I’m fighting. That’s maybe a problem sometimes at our weights. They don’t really know who the fighter is.
“They’re really good fighters, but you're expected to win almost when it’s not always the case. You fight a really good fighter and it could go either way. And I’m expecting a tough fight Saturday, but I love my job, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Yafai fights Francisco Rodriguez, an experienced Mexican who has boxed the likes of Junto Nakatani, Kazuto Iola, Donnie Nietes, and Ramon Gonzalez in his 47-fight career.
Too often, boxers who have not collected belts going up through divisions, or boxers without significant social media followings, are condemned as mere ‘opponents.’
“And that’s the issue with boxing nowadays,” Yafai explained.
“Sometimes you’re better off taking the fight where people know the fighter you’re fighting, but he’s not as good. It’s really bad when you fight someone who’s not known at all and he’s really good and you’re getting less money. It’s just everything that you don’t go with, but sometimes you have to fight them fights and this is a fight that’s been ordered.”
Yafai wears the WBC’s Interim title. The full belt is worn by Kenshiro Teraji.
Nine fights in and with seven stoppages, the gifted and heavy-handed 32-year-old southpaw is content with the path he has trodden in the pros so far, but the level-headed Yafai has no interest in hyping himself up.
“I’m happy enough,” he said. “You always want to do more and things like that, but I’ve had nine fights. I beat the best fighter at flyweight, it was Sunny [Edwards]. That’s not just my opinion. He was number one in Ring magazine, so that’s their opinion. And then I’ve got the WBC number one ranked fighter [Rodriguez]. He’s fought plenty of good fighters. He’s been in the game longer than I’ve been boxing, but he’s my age, which is crazy. So I’m doing it the hard way and there’s no other way I’d probably want to do it.”
The rampant victory against Edwards last November should have served as a coming out party of sorts. But Yafai has a couple of strikes against him. Firstly, he’s quiet and doesn’t brag. Two, some instantly spoke of Edwards’ decline rather than what Yafai did so well.
The latter bothers Yafai more than the former.
“You know, a lot of people doubted me and they thought, ‘Oh, he [Edwards] is too good for Galal,’ but we always knew I was a better fighter. Whatever people say, they say ‘He wasn’t the best, he wasn’t the Sunny of old. Bam [Rodriguez, who defeated Edwards]’s done this to him’ and all these kind of things.
“He [Edwards] seemed all right when he fought six months before I fought him against [Adrian] Curiel, played with him really in Phoenix. But it is what it is.”
Domestically, fans anticipated the flyweight showdown. It was deemed near enough a 50-50, even though revisionist theories stacked the deck in Yafai’s favor.
It was a fight Yafai always felt he would win. He’d sparred Edwards before, and they knew one another well.
“No disrespect to Sunny, he’s a good fighter, but I’m just better. Probably people were siding with him more, maybe leaning towards him, because he’s a former world champion. He’d fought the top fighters in the world. He’d fought ‘Bam’ Rodriguez and he got stopped, but he put on an okay account of himself. And then people just thought, ‘How has Galal done that to him? He’s only had eight fights.’ I don’t think people could come to terms with how easy I beat him. So it was almost, ‘Oh wait, he’s not the same.’ But Sunny’s a good fighter, but I do think he was made out to be better than what he was.
“And that’s no disrespect as well, because I still see him around and we’re cool.”
Yafai, partly because of his skills and pedigree and partly because of his age, is on a fast-track and he’s in a position that, despite his talents, he never assumed he would be in or take for granted.
Yafai, through his amateur years, had a job in a Land Rover factory. He quietly worked while his brother, Kal, claimed a WBA title and his other brother, Gamal, claimed European honors.
He wasn’t in the limelight, but he made it to the Rio Olympics, lost in Brazil, but stayed amateur and made it to Tokyo. Staying amateur was a calculated risk, but he rolled the dice and triumphed all the way to gold.
“I never really overthink things,” said Yafai, asking about whether staying amateur so long risked eating into his time as a pro. “I’m quite calculating with some decisions, but in boxing, I was so early on then [in his journey] I didn’t even think, ‘Oh, I can wait four years and then I’m going to win gold and then I can do that.’ Or I can go pro now, get the knowledge.
“I just thought, ‘You know what? I’ve just got onto the team [GB]. I’ve been working for the past three, four years. I’m on a Great Britain team now. I’m getting paid for it. I might not be the richest, but I’m travelling the world. I’m getting better. Boxing for my country. I’ll just give this a go and carry on with it. I wasn’t really calculating, like, ‘I’m going to wait out four years, go to the Olympics, go pro after with a gold medal.’
“I never even got that far. I just took it year by year. And thank God it just worked out for me. I had to put the work in, obviously. But yeah, thank God it worked.”
The Olympic delay caused by the pandemic made it and even greater risk, although with how well placed Yafai is now, everything is working out.
And despite having the interim title with the WBC, he refuses to acknowledge it as a real world title, or that he is a real world champion. In fact, he is borderline insulted by the question.
“No, of course not. Definitely not. I haven’t said once I’m a world champion,” he laughed.
“How can I be world champion if someone else is there? I don’t get how that works. It’s not me. I’m an Olympic gold medalist. There’s only one Olympic gold medalist at my weight. There can't be two Olympic gold medalists or an interim gold medalist. That [the belt]’s just nice to have in the house.
“But you know what? I haven’t even picked it up and looked at it properly. It’s nice to keep and maybe show a few people in the future. But if I don’t win a world title, then I’m going to just look stupid handing them that.
“And they’re going to say, ‘It says world champion on there,’ but they’re going to say, ‘Were you world champion?’ And I’m going to have to tell them, ‘No, I wasn’t world champion.’ It looks great, but really, I’m not world champion.”
Yafai stops for a moment and adds: “You know what, sometimes I’m too honest. It probably doesn’t help me, but it’s all right. I live an alright life.”
For Yafai, however, while he might be lacking in bluster, he knows what he wants. He’s happy to discuss future opponents, but he is not at all fussed by who he fights.
It’s about titles, for now, rather than opponents. The latter will come in time.
The full champion Teraji would be an obvious target.
“I’m not going to sit here and long and say, ‘Yeah, I’m dying to fight him.’ I don’t care who I fight,’ Yafai added. “It’s who's got the belt. And Kenshiro’s got the belt so I have to fight him for that belt. It’s never personal, and ‘I want to fight this guy.’”
What Teraji also brings, however, is he is often in pound-for-pound discussions and should he topple the Japanese star, Yafai would find himself closer to that conversation.
“Yeah, he’s a good fighter,” Yafai continued.
“He’s not unstoppable, is he? I've watched a few of his fights and he’s just a force to be reckoned with. He's a good fighter, but am I good enough to beat him? Of course I am.
“I’m not deluded. But could I lose? Yeah, of course I could lose as well.
“It’s just a really good fight, and people will go with him because he's got the experience, and he’s been around a long time. I’ve had nine fights. It’s crazy even putting him in conversations. But yeah, he’s got the belt so this is just a step on Saturday. But what a run it would be, Sunny, Rodriguez, and then Kenshiro for the world title. I’ve not had it easy, where former Olympic champions might have had it a little bit easier, but I haven’t.”