Lewis Edmondson wins pro debut despite lots of late hassles
Super-middleweight amateur standout Lewis Edmondson (1-0), signed to Frank Warren, made his professional debut at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday, September 27, but it wasn't a straight-forward experience for the youngster.
The newest Queensberry Promotions recruit defeated Gianni Antoh (1-9), 30 from Cambridge, 40-36 on points, but it was well after the main event had finished and the crowds had cleared out of the historic venue in Kensington.The Southampton man was made to wait almost six hours for his fight to take place, having been assigned the role of a 'Floater' on the card headlined by Daniel Dubois.
The former ABA champion said in an interview with iFL TV after midnight, "It was unbelievable! Yesterday I had an opponent pulled out, nothing worse, we didn't know if I was going to get on, [we] pushed and pushed and pushed, luckily thank you to my man who stepped in and we managed to get the show on the road."
The role of the 'Floater' on an event is scheduled to fight at any given time during the night and can be used to fill slots according to the scheduling. If the floats aren't required, then they fight after the main event has finished, which turned out to be the case for young Edmonson even after being ready to go first thing in the evening.
He explained, "Not only that, I was a floater tonight. Been gloved up since six o'clock. We didn't know what time I was getting on. I was nackered, I've been warming up since six o'clock! Pads 10 times! Warm up, warm down.
"Overall, I thought it was a good performance, I was pleased, yeah. First one out of the way, ready to move on."
The 23-year-old, who is trained by Josh Burnham in Bushey, narrowly missed out on a place on the GB team for the Rio Olympics in 2016, having previously won the youth ABAs, the CYPs and the Three-Nations titles. His amateur career spanned 60 fights, with 52 wins.
He is planning on having a short rest before getting back in the gym to fight again before the end of the year.