Ebanie Bridges kept her bandwagon rolling on Saturday night when fighting through injury to gain a hotly debated decision over Mailys Gangloff in Leeds.
The Australian looked good early on until damaging her right hand somewhere in the first half of the fight. The subsequent ailment hampered her progress.
But it was Gangloff who took advantage, seeing out what seemed to be an easy decision to make by British referee Steve Gray.
Amazingly, Gray scored the contest for Bridges by a margin of 77-76. Effectively, this meant the fight was 6-3 to Bridges, with one round scored even by Gray.
This stalemate round added to the wide margin was enough for “The Blonde Bomber” to take the spoils. However, Gangloff was severely hard done by.
The Frenchwoman should have taken the result by flipping those scores, which the fans made clear during the aftermath.
“Shocking scorecard,” said one response to the official Matchroom result on social media. “Bridges clearly lost, but hey, [they] need to set up the rematch with [Shannon] Courtenay to generate more money.
“These things are killing the sport,” they added.
Another said: “I love Bridges, but she lost that fight, clearly injured but still, sick of s— decisions. Happening far too often, summit needs to be done.
“I feel for Gangloff. Bridges knows she lost that by her reaction to getting the nod.”
Further comments stated:
“First robbery of the night. Lovely stuff.”
As [Matchroom commentator] Darren Barker said: “Not for me.” Really poor decision and gutted for Gangloff.”
“What a surprise, the Matchroom boxer was on the right side of a dodgy decision.”
EBANIE BRIDGES vs. GANGLOFF REMATCH
The big question now is, ‘will Bridges afford Gangloff a rematch?’ – It’s certainly the right thing to do moving forward.
“I wonder if all the people that want bridges to get a Courtney rematch with be so kind to Gangloff,” said one commenter on the matter.
It’s unlikely to happen, but who knows? – Bridges has to recover from her injury first anyway.
