Ebanie Bridges: San Francisco & A New Beginning

Ebanie Bridges: San Francisco & A New Beginning

In many ways, when Ebanie Bridges lands in San Francisco in December, it will be a new beginning. It will be her first fight in a year. The surgically repaired right hand is now in full working order, and Bridges will look to unleash it on her fellow Australian Avril Mathie when she ends her ring hiatus on December 9th at the Chase Center.

Bridges will also begin a new chapter in her unlikely to some but quite remarkable boxing story when Dave Coldwell will be the main voice in her ear as Bridges makes the 2nd defence of her IBF bantamweight title with a new trainer at the helm.

Coldwell replaced Mark Tibbs when the reigning IBF bauble holder moved her life to Sheffield earlier this year. Bridges is no stranger to making tough decisions for the sake of her career, and yet again, the hook-up with Coldwell will be one that will prove to be beneficial to her boxing career going forward.

Despite the undoubted success of her ring career to date, there are still those lingering doubters who can’t see past other aspects of her life and simply don’t get Ebanie Bridges. But Bridges ‘gets it’ perhaps better than any other boxer around today.

Bridges knows how to market herself, which is one of the great understatements of any year, but behind her incredibly lucrative Only Fans account and everything else that runs alongside it, is an almost obsessive boxer. To some, the glitzy glamour shots hide the fact that Bridges is a world champion. Something that always seems to get lost in translation and no doubt is totally dismissed by her detractors. But make no mistake, she earned that title by right. Even her harshest critics should give her that, at least. Getting this far in her career is through sheer hard work. Bridges can not be faulted for her dedication and work ethic to her sport.

But it’s not just hard graft that has brought her this far. Bridges is a far better boxer than she will ever be given credit for. There is talent and plenty of it, and I do think there is more to come, especially now that her troublesome right hand is fully healed. Coldwell is almost certainly the right man at the right time, to take Bridges to the next phase of her career.

We haven’t seen the Australian in action since last December, and despite the right hand still in desperate need of repair, it was Bridges at her spiteful best. Shannon O’Connell came to Leeds with plenty to say and with plenty of ambition and hope. But after a rocky start, Bridges took control in the 2nd round and simply battered her mandatory challenger to a painful and humiliating defeat. Bridges called it her sweetest victory. It was also her best. O’Connell had talent but she found an opponent who was way too good for her. What looked like a 50/50 fight, Boxing News even tipped O’Connell to win, wasn’t even a close fight. Bridges, not for the first time, proved a lot of people wrong.

If, as expected, Bridges launches her comeback with a win over Mathie, 2024 will likely be a year of unification fights. Nina Hughes, the WBA title holder, is an easy fight to make and would be a crowd-pleasing affair. A possible fight of the year contender. If Bridges adds another world title to her name, her resume would be near completion. But you suspect Bridges will just want more. She will always want more. You sense she will never ever be satisfied.

Whoever writes the inevitable Ebanie Bridges autobiography should look at ‘Born to Fight’ as the headline wording on the front cover because, in many ways, she was. Bridges has been fighting her whole life, and even now, she is still fighting for acceptance in a world that is still in some ways stuck in the dark ages. Breaking down barriers and changing perceptions has been a constant for Bridges, and that won’t likely stop anytime soon. By the time her fighting life ends, Ebanie Bridges will likely have won the battle for acceptance. And that would perhaps be her biggest-ever victory.

Photo Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing