Ebanie Bridges: “I am just concentrating on this fight, punching that girl in the face, and having my hand raised.”

Ebanie Bridges: “I am just concentrating on this fight, punching that girl in the face, and having my hand raised.”

Life is very different now for Ebanie Bridges. Motherhood is still relatively new to her, with a fourteen-month-old son who keeps her incredibly busy. “Hectic,” Bridges told me over Zoom when I asked how that life is. “It’s pretty wild, and it’s keeping me really busy. It’s definitely not softened me up, but it’s slowed me down a little bit.”

Despite that beyond busy life, the passion for boxing remains. Bridges is coming off two straight defeats. The former IBF world bantamweight champion returns this Saturday night at the Vertu Motors Arena in Newcastle when she faces Ebonie Cotton over six rounds. A third defeat on the bounce would surely signal retirement for the 39-year-old. There is pressure for this weekend’s pivotal fight, but it comes from within. “It’s the pressure that I put on myself,” Bridges told me. “I am not as nervous as I was before my previous fight. I didn’t feel pressure for my last fight, but I felt nerves. But I feel pressure for this fight, but from myself.”

Bridges is accepting that a defeat to Cotton would bring her boxing career to a close. “If I can’t pull it together and beat Ebonie Cotton, then what is the point of me trying to keep going? My goals are to become a world champion again and to beat Shannon Courtenay, and if I can’t beat her, then that’s it. Maybe I would have just got old, or my life is too hectic. It’s just full on. Gone are the days when I can just train and rest and only focus on my training and myself. So, if I can’t beat Ebonie Cotton, it’s telling me something, isn’t it?”

There might be two straight defeats on her record, but maybe that statistic doesn’t tell the whole story. Bridges lost her IBF bauble to Miyo Yoshida in 2023, who was a last-minute replacement for Avril Mathie, and she suffered her second straight reversal when she lost on points to Alexis Araiza Mones in January. The defeat to Yoshida came off hand surgery and a year-long absence. The upset defeat to Mones was probably too much too soon after giving birth and being two years removed from her last fight.

“There was a lot going on in camp when I lost my world title,” Bridges says. “There was a lot going on in my last fight. The Miyo fight was just all the messing around with my opponent. I was emotionally and mentally drained before that fight. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be in that fight as I just wanted to get it over and done with. You can’t go into a fight with that attitude. I am used to being excited, and can’t wait to bash my opponent. But I just wanted to get it over and done with after all the shit I had been through.

“It was a little bit similar to that with my last fight. I just wanted to get that out of the way. But I don’t have those feelings with this fight. I am excited for this fight. I am looking forward to fighting in the UK again. I am very excited because I have been training with Dominic Ingle, and my sparring has been going well. Dom is a great trainer. There are levels. There is pressure, but I tend to be good under pressure.

“There were nerves in my last fight, but my body just wasn’t ready. I only started my strength and conditioning about five weeks before the fight. I had to prioritise my time because it’s hard with a newborn. He is a little older now, so it’s a little easier. I just couldn’t do everything that I wanted. For this fight, everything is so much better. I feel confident, and I am looking forward to getting in there.”

After finding success, and plenty of it, training with Mark Tibbs, a working relationship that brought the IBF world title, Bridges has moved around various gyms looking to replicate that success with Tibbs. Bridges is now with Dominic Ingle, and the Australian seems happy with her new trainer.

“Mark was the best, and I did contemplate going back to him,” Bridges relayed to me. “I needed someone who was proven to me. But then I trained with Dom in Fuerteventura, and he’s got even more experience than Mark. Dom is world-class. He is what I need, someone who can understand me. It works well with me and Kell (Brook). It just works. I feel that if anyone can bring out the old Ebanie Bridges and make me a world champion again, it’s Dom. I need that good corner experience. He knows how to change things up. He gives me the right instructions. I’ve got that trust with Dom, and I think that’s really important.”

Bridges is happy again, a reflective fighter, but still an ambitious one. She talks about one last run at a world title and a rematch with Shannon Courtenay. But there is business to take care of on Saturday night first, before any thoughts of what potentially lies ahead. “I am just concentrating on this fight, punching that girl in the face, and having my hand raised. After that, I can get back to what I do best, making lots of noise. But for now, I just have to focus on the one thing ahead of me.”