Olympic medalist Wyatt Sanford keeps an active schedule in the pros

Junior welterweight Wyatt Sanford is staying active to start his professional career and doing real damage.

Sanford faces Gonzalo Omar Manriquez on Friday at the Centre Videotron in Quebec City, Canada. The bout will be his third fight since turning pro on May 17. He will have fought three times in a month and a half, while competing in his first six-round bout. 

Sanford, 2-0 (2 KOs), who was a 2024 Canadian Olympic bronze medalist, is known as “Kennetcook Kid,” a nickname that is derived from his hometown of Kennetcook, Nova Scotia, Canada, replacing his previous moniker, “Sandman.” 

The 26-year-old Sanford needed only one round to stop unbeaten Tomas Lastra on June 7. 

“In a month and 10 days, I will have three pro fights, so I am moving up fast,” Sanford told BoxingScene. “The interesting thing for me is people seeing how physical I can be in the ring and how I aim to fight the following day.

“In the amateurs, I went solely to win the fight,” Sanford said. “Now, as a pro, I am trying to do damage.”

In Sanford’s two professional fights, neither has gone beyond the first round. He believes that, unlike the amateurs, he can be more physical and hit harder since he doesn’t have to worry about fighting the next day. 

“It does and it doesn’t,” Sanford said. “With the amateurs, it was always back-to-back days, getting through the first fight, so I could fight the following day.”

Manriquez, 9-4 (3 KOs), a 39-year-old from Ashdod, Israel, will be fighting for the first time in over two years. For this fight, Sanford talked about finding inspiration from fellow Canadian boxers Lucas Bahdi and Arthur Biyarslanov.

Sanford explained his conversations with Bahdi. 

“Every time one of us fights, there is always a message back and forth,” Sanford said. 

Sanford fought Biyarslanov when he first turned 18 years old. Biyarslanov was the guy that Sanford looked up to in his weight class in terms of elite amateur boxing. 

“I fought him twice. I didn’t win either one of them,” Sanford said.

For the past seven years, the two have sparred with each other. Sanford finds motivation in seeing his evolution from past fights, which keeps him going to fight so often as a pro.

“Seeing what he was able to do to me when I was 18 and now working with him, it serves as motivation,” Sanford said. “Seeing the difference between me in 2016 and 2017 compared to now is a huge difference.”