Former heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs has promised to hand Tyson Fury a real beating if they every get in the ring.

Briggs is coming off a suspension after he failed a pre-fight drug test due to elevated levels of testosterone. He had been scheduled to face Fres Oquendo for the WBA's "regular" world title on June 3.

Briggs (60-6-1), unbeaten since a 2010 decision loss to Vitali Klitschko, last fought in 2016 when he knocked out Emilio Ezequiel Zarate at the O2 Arena in London.

Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) has been out of the ring since winning an upset decision over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015.

At the moment Fury is attempting to reclaim his boxing license from the British Boxing Board of Control. He lost his license, and his WBO, WBA, IBO world titles, after dealing with depression and testing positive for cocaine in 2016.

Not only does Briggs wants to batter Fury and eliminate him - he wants to break all of his fingers to prevent him from creating  more headlines with his controversial tweets on Twitter.

"It's gonna be a great fight. I can't wait," Briggs said UPI. "I don't like him. I'm just telling you, I'm gonna knock him out. At the press conference, the weigh in, I'm serious. It's gonna be the fight of the century. He talks a lot of crap. I'm sick of him. I'm sick of his mouth. He's on Twitter all the time. I'm gonna break his fingers when I see him. I got something for his Twitter fingers."

"[Fury] is crazy. He's sick. He is sick in the head. So I'm going to rid boxing of him. I'm going to do everybody a favor and knock him out cold. So he can go back to his corner somewhere and disappear.

"The truth of the matter is, I think he's a little scared. But I understand. I mean I punch really, really hard. Something is wrong with me. I punch so hard that usually I can hear the ribs crack when I hit them ... So I understand, he don't want to get his ribs cracked. Who wants to get cracked ribs?"