Emotional Ebanie Bridges in tears during interview off the back of title victory
Boxing star Ebanie Bridges couldn’t hold back the tears after securing her stunning victory over Shannon O’Connell this past weekend. The 'Blonde Bomber' stopped her fellow Australian in the eighth round of their clash to retain her IBF bantamweight belt.
She stretched her record to nine wins with just one loss and, during her chat with Matchroom Boxing, she described the victory as ‘the sweetest of her career’. Halfway through the chat, coach Mark Tibbs stood by her side and, as he gave a gushing assessment of her, Bridges laid her head on his shoulder and said: “Now I’m going to cry, I’m emotional.”
As tears formed in her eyes, Tibbs shared: “This queen of Australia, she is the best fighter I have ever worked with, reason being she is such a professional. I'm very very proud of her. She’s got the heart of a lion, she’s made of steel and there’s no quit in her. So we keep moving forward and she’s going to keep chipping away.
READ MORE: Ebanie Bridges retains world title with slugfest win over Shannon O'Connell
“I heard Eddie talking about the unification and this lady is always talking about unifying so we’re going to take some time out, take a breather and hopefully set a plan out.” Bridges dropped her opponent in the third round with a thunderous right hand.
She went to the floor again in the fourth but the referee judged it to be a slip as Bridges piled on the pressure. Bridges unleashed another barrage in the seventh round and O'Connell was struggling immensely with a gruesome right eye injury impairing her vision.
She battered away in the eighth, continuing the onslaught before the referee stepped in and halted the show with O'Connell unable to fight back. “I have to say that was the sweetest win of my career, it was really good. I knew she was going to be tough, but I knew I was tougher, I knew I was stronger, I knew I was better,” Bridges said.
“I said to my whole team just before I went out that I had a feeling I would knock her out. I didn't know she was going to get up when I dropped her. She did but yeah that felt really satisfying.”
When asked why the victory was so satisfying, Bridges added: “Because she gave me absolutely zero respect. You hadn’t heard about her until I started talking about her.
“She’d been disrespecting me for over two years. She should have been stopped three times in my opinion. You can’t deny me of that win, I am a champ and I’m going to go on to bigger and better things. Everything I say I do, comes true.”
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