Galal Yafai believes amateur bouts against future champions like Sunny Edwards helped prepare him for his professional career as they meet live on DAZN this weekend.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games star, a gold medal winner for Team GB, faces the ex-IBF flyweight title holder for the interim WBC crown at bp pulse LIVE in Birmingham.
Yafai, who comes from a boxing family, turned to the sport comparatively late as a teenager, and suffered early defeats as an amateur to Edwards and Harvey Horn.
But speaking on DAZN's FACE OFF , the former thinks that the sink-or-swim approach he faced as he started out helped to shape his success and bring him to this bout.
"I say I’m a kid, I was twenty-one at the time, I think," he said. "But I started boxing at eighteen or nineteen so It was all new to me. I was boxing the top boys.
"I lost to Sunny on a split, and he went on to win [the IBF title]. I boxed Harvey the year before. He beat me on a split. He went on to win [the European title].
"So I was thrown in the deep end. It made me the fighter who I was. I ended up going to the Olympics and winning gold. It put me in good stead, it put him in good stead."
Yafai is looking to preserve an unbeaten record as a professional, having gone 8-0 so far across his career since leaving his amateur days behind him.
Edwards meanwhile suffered a first career loss to Jesse Rodriguez last year but has recovered to a 21-1 record after beating Adrian Curiel in Phoenix this June.
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