EBANIE BRIDGES has offered her support to Billy Joe Saunders having initially questioned the severity of his eye injury following his defeat to Canelo Alvarez.
The British star, 31, was forced to throw in the towel shortly before the ninth round against his superb Mexican opponent on Saturday following a brutal uppercut which fractured his eye socket.
The defeat was the first of Saunders‘ 31-fight career, with Australian boxer Bridges appearing to question his decision to bow out of his fight with Canelo.
The Blonde Bomber, 34, tweeted: “Don’t tell me he stopped cos of his eye……”
Bridges herself was left with an horrendous amount of swelling around her eye following her points defeat to Brit star Shannon Courtenay last month.
At the time she tweeted: “Men have quit from less than that.”
But after receiving a backlash from boxing fans, Bridges took to Instagram to throw her support behind Saunders – who was rushed to hospital following his loss to Canelo and could even be forced to retire.
Bridges wrote: “I Defs wasn’t in there with canelo, but I was in a lot of pain and I couldn’t see for 3 rounds…
“I went to emergency after the fight as everyone suspected a break but luckily for me there was no breaks.
“At first I was like wtf why they stopping the fight cos it didn’t look that bad….
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“But I do feel for @saundersbillyjoe I thought he was Defs in the fight, I’m sure he would of liked to continue, the corner did their job.
“It might not look as bad as mine looked on the outside but I’m sure it’s very serious.”
Bridges continued by suggesting she has no regrets over her initial tweet, saying it’s been great publicity for women’s boxing.
The Blonde Bomber added: “I’m pretty happy that women’s boxing is getting talked about during this fight!
“It’s all traction and attention.”
Saunders’ eye injury drew eerie parallels to that of heavyweight Daniel Dubois who broke his orbital bone in defeat to Joe Joyce last November.
Dubois also came in for monster criticism as he waved the fight off on his knees – since sitting out the last six months preparing for his return against Bogdan Dinu on June 5.
Saunders was amongst those to lash out at Dubois – saying he’d rather DIE in the ring than give up.
But Saunders’ promoter Eddie Hearn has vowed to back his man despite knowing he’s in for a ‘long, long’ lay-off.
Hearn told iFL TV: “You could see as soon as he [Canelo] hit him [Saunders] that he’d done his eye socket.
“I think because he couldn’t see, the next round was going to be a bad situation. I think he would have got badly hurt in that round.
“He’s gone to hospital and I believe he’ll have that operated on immediately. So he’s going to be out for a long, long time.
“But he’s a world class fighter who lost to the pound-for-pound number one. He’s a two-weight world champion.
“If he wants to carry on there’s some big fights out there for him. He may feel he has got to a stage where he’s been there, he’s done it, he’s seen it all.
“We’ll back him 100 per cent.”
