Former flyweight champion Sunny Edwards is in Gibraltar, working on the Full Monty Promotions bill topped by brothers Kriss and Evan Montegriffo.
Both 4-0, Evan is a 27-year-old super middleweight and Kriss if 4-0 at heavyweight.
There are six bouts on the bill at the Europa Point Sports Complex on Saturday, July 11.
“I’m really looking forward to a good night of boxing,” Edwards told BoxingScene. “And you know, it’ll probably be only after it’s been done and we’ve sort of pulled it off and the dust has settled a bit that I’ll be able to look back on what it was that we’ve just done and the little hurdles that we had to jump and what we pulled together.”
Edwards called the promotion “just a very small step” and joked: “We’re not trying to go too big or make out that Eddie [Hearn] or Frank [Warren] need to worry just yet.”
The goal is to provide an opportunity for the brothers to make Gibraltar a hub of sorts, working with the Gibraltar National Boxing Association, the amateurs team, the national team, the brothers and their gym and their father, as well as the other gyms in Gibraltar.
Of course, the goal is to build champions, but also contribute to shaping the fight community.
“There’s definitely a thirst for it, there’s a hunger for it, there’s a buzz for it. You know, Djibouti hasn’t always got the most of entertainment and tourism, should we say, they have to go to Spain a lot, or the UK a lot to, I don’t know, see the biggest acts or the biggest sporting events, etc. So, if we can really build something in the territory, we’ve got the support from the chief minister, we’ve got the support from many local businesses and the territory really, it’s really all coming together. We’re right at the eve now, so I don’t want to speak too soon and the lights don’t even turn on or something.”
Edwards said he is looking forward to what he calls “being on the other side of the curtain” and the idea is to build the Montegriffos in Gibraltar first.
“Ideally, [the future is] setting up and genuinely benefiting off having a home advantage and a home territory of being able to put the show on, on dates that work for the fighters and take the career at their pace rather than sort of like desperately waiting to see what comes through.
“And it usually gives careers a little bit more legs when you have that sort of home support and also when it comes to time to fight for titles or looking to put bigger fights on, having that, we can make an offer to make a bigger fight, a title fight, and then have it on our sort of home advantage. We’ve got some plans for the near future and what we’d like to do regarding the promotion, as long as everything goes well with this one.
“We don’t want to go too big right now. It’s one show at a time and, the hub, the center is building it, trying to build it in Gibraltar. And then, after executing that, looking to maybe spread a little bit wider. I’ve got a lot of fighters that I work with in territories up and down the UK. And I know for a fact that if some of my fighters didn’t have something lined up, I know I could put a good show together with a few of them.
“It’d be a proper fight card and some real good talent and built up fighters. And I would love to get to the stage where the promotion is running four, six, eight shows, a few different territories over the year and I haven’t got to keep going to promoters with my hands out in the air, asking for an opportunity for a lad that deserves one, trying to make it make sense.
“It just gets a bit frustrating and a bit disheartening for the fighter when not only are they training and worrying about fighting in front of loads of people and being on weight and every other thing that comes with boxing, they’re getting hounded by the promoter and their manager and everyone about tickets because they promised that they would sell 250 and they’ve only sold 100. So we’re trying to obviously make the show work, but at the same time, do everything in a reasonable manner where we’re not biting off too much more than we can chew.”
