By Mark Vester

The Press of Atlantic City reports that the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey has been selected as the venue for Shannon Briggs' (48-4-1, 42 KOs) defense of the WBO heavyweight title against mandatory Sultan Ibragimov (20-0-1, 17 KOs).

Initially, the fight was scheduled to take place in Moscow, Russia, but a conflict with a possible Maskaev-Klitschko clash that was also scheduled to take place on the same day in the city, forced the fight to America.

Briggs will be looking to overcome a cloud of bad luck in Atlantic City. Two of his four career losses went down in AC.

In 96, Briggs was stopped in Darroll Wilson in three rounds, two years later, he was stopped in five rounds by then WBC champ Lennox Lewis and in his last fight on AC soil in 99, he fought Francois Botha to a ten round draw.

Ibragimov, only fought once in Atlantic City, stopping Zuri Lawrence in eleven rounds at the Tropicana Casino Resort in April 2005.

The Briggs-Ibragimov clash will still move forward on June 2.