Sunny Edwards made the same mistake as Naseem Hamed

In his regular question-and-answer column with The Star, Dennis explains why.

He touches on Sunny's retirement after his WBC Interim World Flyweight defeat and also that of Parson Cross's Levi Kinsiona, as well as Glyn Rhodes' 'Boxing Against Bullying' programme.

Sunny Edwards quit the sport after being stopped by Yafai – what do you make of his career? Was it a good idea to have left Grant Smith and the Steel City Gym?

As soon as I heard that he had left, I was concerned because he was in good company in Grant’s gym.

If something’s working then why would he change it? It’s a bit like Naseem Hamed moving away from Brendan Ingle.

It was such a big fight, and how many times have we seen fighters change their trainers before going into a big fight and then getting beat. It’s happened so many times.

In a fight, when you need to get into the trenches, a fighter needs that trust in their trainer, somebody who can trigger something in their mind. You need to have built up trust to change tactics or mentality in a fight.

You could hear his new trainer shouting above the commentators but he maybe hadn’t got that relationship with Sunny - he can’t have, he hadn’t been with him long enough.

Sunny had a great rapport with Grant and he might have triggered something and got him back into that fight.

His new trainer sounded desperate at times and that might have transferred into Sunny’s performance.

As soon as Sunny said: ‘I don’t want to be in here’, his trainer should have said: ‘I’m going to give you one round and if you don’t get competitive, I’m pulling you out’.

Too many trainers are thinking about their own careers rather than the boxer’s.

So, for me, he should have stayed with Grant and it was a bad decision on Sunny’s part but I do like him.

I think he’s had a great career; he’s been a bit controversial at times but when I’ve sat down with him and met him, I really do respect and like him.

I think he’ll stick to his retirement, when I’ve spoken to him, he’s always come across as very passionate and knowledgeable about the game, and he says he’s lost that passion, so it’s a dangerous game and he should retire.

Levi Kinsiona has just quit boxing after a recent stoppage defeat too - is his retirement premature?

I think some fighters chop and change too much.

Look at Clinton Woods, he stayed loyal to me all the way through his career for 14 years.

We went sideways and had a couple of losses but we regrouped, looked to improve on things and we did it together.

It’s about trust again and winning and losing together - don’t point the finger if you’ve lost because it might actually be your fault!

If you fall at a hurdle, don’t just pack the job in, get back on the horse and let’s go and try and win again, there’s more furlongs to go.

Maybe he’s premature but maybe he’s not with the right team or he hasn’t been given enough backing.

It’s a shame because I do like Levi, I’ve watched him and he has got plenty of ability but it’s so important the team around you.

People say it’s all about the boxers but it’s also about the whole team.

Obviously, it’s the kid in there who’s taking the punches and delivering the punches but there’s more to it than that.

Going back to Clinton, a lot of people at the start never fancied him to win anything, he only had one or two people including me and Neil Port who thought he’d win something but he believed in us and we believed in him and look what we achieved together.

Glyn Rhodes is relaunching the Boxing Against Bullying campaign in schools - do you support him in that endeavour?

One hundred percent - I love what he’s doing there.

Glyn’s a great old friend of mine, we go back such a long way and it’s great what he’s doing.

In this world that we live in, nobody’s put on this earth to be bullied and nobody’s put on this earth to bully.

Boxing can make a difference, and it’s about online bullying as well as physical bullying.

What Glyn’s doing through boxing, it gives kids confidence.

You get camaraderie within the gym and everybody’s on a level, so I absolutely 100 percent support him and if I can do anything to help, he only has to pick the phone up.