By Mark Vester

Shannon Briggs, who lost his WBO heavyweight title via twelve round decision to Sultan Ibragimov on Saturday night at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is blaming a combination of asthma and asthma medication for the loss. He weighed in at a very high 273-pounds for the bout, which Briggs claims is the result of asthma medicine complicating his training camp. Briggs said that he was hurting so bad from asthma medication that he wanted to pull out of the fight.

"I was hurting," Briggs said. "And he was running. He kept running. I proved that someone with asthma can become heavyweight champion twice. For two weeks I couldn't train. I was taking all kinds of antibiotics. I didn't want to fight but they made me fight."

The New York Post reported that Calvin Brock, who was originally slated to appear on the pay-per-view portion of the show, was intentionally placed in a bout that followed the main event.

Warriors Boxing, who promote Ibragimov and put on the pay-per-view, were so worried that Briggs would pull out at the last minute that Brock was ready and willing to step in. If Briggs would have pulled out, he would have been stripped of the title and Brock would have then faced Ibragimov in the main event for the vacant belt.

Brock (31-1, 23 KOs) won a less than entertaining eight-round unanimous decision over Alex Gonzalez (18-5, 8 KOs). The only entertaining part of the fight was Brock suffering a flash knockdown in the third round. The scores were were 79-74, 77-74 and 77-74.

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