“The Baby Face Assassin” Shannon Courtenay will face “The Blonde Bomber” Ebanie Bridges for the vacant WBA bantamweight world title at the Copper Box Arena on Saturday night. (photo by Martys Photography)
Courtenay (6-1, 3 KOs), who stopped Dorota Norek in seven rounds on the Billy Joe Saunders vs. Martin Murray undercard last time out in December, was originally slated to rematch Rachel Ball for the WBA crown, but Ball is still recovering from the effects of COVID-19.
Australia’s Bridges (5-0, 2 KOs) celebrated her return to the ring after more than a year out with a convincing point win over Carol Earl in Sydney. ‘The Blonde Bomber’ won the judges’ favor and secured a unanimous decision victory in Bankstown to extend her unbeaten run to five fights, including two knockouts.
Waiting in the wings is arguably Australia’s best female boxer, “Shotgun” Shannon O’Connell – who is on a near 5 year undefeated streak and the current #1 rated bantamweight boxer under the WBA.
O’Connell (21-6, 10 KOs) is fresh off winning her WBA Gold title against undefeated Cherneka Johnson (13-1) on March 3rd, on enemy territory in Bendigo Stadium, Victoria – and she is making no bones about wanting the winner as she opens up about the WBA world title fight this weekend.
“Neither girl deserves such a big fight at this point in their careers. They haven’t done the years of hard work like myself and plenty of others have, but good on them for taking the opportunity. At least it’s not a clear one sided fight,” O’Connell said.
“I think Shannon Courtney will win, she seems to be taking things a bit more seriously. Ebanie is making a joke out of the whole thing and I think that’ll show in the fight.
“I don’t see either of these girls as a step up for me so I’m more than happy to fight whoever wins. An all-Aussie showdown would be good and it’ll give me the opportunity to squash another undefeated record if Ebanie does win though”