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Believe it or not...but everyone is taking a chance now when the division is at it's weakest ..
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http://www.maxboxing.com/Gerbasi/Gerbasi072309.asp
Shannon Briggs – The Final Chapter
Like Sylvester Stallone’s iconic Rocky Balboa, Shannon Briggs still has “some stuff in the basement.” At 37 years old and a little over two years removed from his last prize fight, the man who was once touted to be boxing’s savior wants to try one more time.
You’ve no doubt heard that story before - the man on the wrong side of 35 looking to recapture glory in the hardest game. And you know how it usually ends. But heavyweight boxing, circa 2009, isn’t what it used to be, and no one is more aware of that fact than Briggs, the Brownsville product who once held a portion of what was once considered the most prestigious title in all of sports.
“The heavyweight division’s dead,” said Briggs. “So my question to the world is, who better than me? Who’s big enough? It damn sure ain’t Chris Arreola. Who’s strong enough? It’s not (David) Haye or Arreola. And who’s experienced or fast enough? I’m faster than all these young boys that they’ve got coming up. I’m faster than Haye, I’m faster than Chris and Kevin Johnson, and I’m more experienced, bigger, and stronger than them. So why not come back and at least try to bring the belt back to America?”
In a nutshell, that’s Shannon Briggs, and for all the over the top proclamations, he still remains an intriguing enough figure that seeing him back in action and making a run at the top would, at the very least, be interesting for a division that needs all the help it can get. He knows it too, so it’s why, a year after his dismal title-losing performance against Sultan Ibragimov in June of 2007, he decided that it was time to get off the couch and into the gym. That didn’t last long though.
“When I took off, I wasn’t shy about eating,” he laughs, admitting that he ballooned up to as much as 330 pounds. But three months ago, he finally decided that if he was going to make another run at this, he had to start getting serious. And he has been.
“I’ve been in the gym for three months and I shredded a lot of weight, but I had put on a lot of weight as well,” he said. “Now I gotta get it all off.”
Then it will be back to the drawing board, something he didn’t ever imagine he would be saying at 37, especially not after he knocked out Sergey Liakhovich with one second left in the 12th round to win the WBO heavyweight title in November of 2006. But what should have been the crowning glory of a rollercoaster career that saw him go from media darling to pariah and everything in between instead became a nightmare. Yet even going through a nightmare was preferable to being ignored by a public that put little value in the heavyweight title.
“I damn near cried when I won the title,” said Briggs. “I’m the WBO heavyweight champion of the world, I broke up this Russian domination, and you had no stories about it. I was devastated. Ebony, Jet magazine, Essence, even the black people didn’t give a #$%$ about me. (Laughs) But I won’t lie, I was hurt.”
It got worse when Briggs was immediately tossed into negotiations for a bout against Sultan Ibragimov. The fight was originally scheduled for March of 2007 in New York’s Madison Square Garden, but was postponed when Briggs came down with walking pneumonia, which - coupled with his asthma - made even walking up the stairs an ordeal. Doctors from both camps soon examined Briggs, putting his recovery time anywhere from three months to a year. The fight was rescheduled for three months later, June 2nd, but Briggs was in no shape to fight, mentally or physically. Threatened with lawsuits and being stripped of his title, he went along with the bout. The result was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
“I get off my couch, jump on a plane, go to AC, walk in the ring, lose a decision, and I still almost knocked his little ass out in the first round,” said Briggs of the fight, which he lost via scores of 119-109, 117-111, and 115-113. In terms of aesthetic value, the dismal nature of the fight was only surpassed by Ibragimov’s next fight, a decision loss to Wladimir Klitschko in February of 2008. Ibragimov hasn’t been seen in the ring since. Briggs was planning to take the same route. But there were no press releases, no teary retirement speeches. He was simply done.
“I wanted it to be it for me,” he said. “I was really tired and I felt really bamboozled to a point. After that fight, I was disgusted. It’s a real dirty game.”
To keep busy, Briggs talked to asthmatic kids and asthma awareness groups, and also raided the refrigerator on a regular basis. But when he did look at the heavyweight division, he didn’t like what he saw.
“When I watch the Klitschko sisters, I just get upset,” said Briggs of IBF/WBO champ Wladimir and WBC champ Vitali. “They’re the worst champions in history because they don’t care to put on an exciting fight and they won’t take any risks. When I watched him (Wladimir) fight (Hasim) Rahman, Rahman had like a three week notice and he didn’t go in there and blast Rahman out in the first round, and I didn’t understand that. You’re the heavyweight champion, they pay you big bucks. You go in there and annihilate him. Every fight is safety-first with this guy. He looks like Lennox Lewis. A lot of people forget how boring Lennox Lewis was. You look at (Evander) Holyfield and (Mike) Tyson and he caught those guys at the end of their careers, and it was always that boring European style – jab, jab, right hand, clinch. People don’t want to see that. I can’t ever see the Garden even letting him (Wladimir) in the doors to watch a basketball game after that Sultan Ibragimov fight. (Laughs) And I’m not afraid of them. Ray Austin got up there and turned into a woman. You can’t do that. You get a guy like Chris Arreola and put him in front of 50,000 Germans yelling and screaming, he might freeze. Me, I’m gonna love it.”
But while fight fans don’t want to see another jab and grab fest from Wladimir Klitschko, they also don’t want to see a replay of Briggs-Ibragimov or the first 11 rounds of Briggs-Liakhovich either. Briggs is aware of this, and he knows what people are saying when they hear of his comeback plans. His response?
“I’m not the best, I’m not the greatest. I’m here right now to make a fight. If you want to fight a fight, call me and I’ll make it a fight. I don’t want to seem like a big-mouthed dude that’s just here to score and make some money. I really want to fight and I really want to win it.”
Then he can leave the sport without the bitter taste he left it with the first time. Still under contract with Don King, and currently working with the man who led Liakhovich and Sam Peter to titles, Ivaylo Gotzev, Briggs hopes to get a couple of comeback fights under his belt before chasing down one or both of the Klitschkos. Can he pull it off? Stranger things have happened in this game, and with his punching power, Briggs is always one punch away from victory. But whether this comeback is successful or not, he makes one thing abundantly clear:
“This is it. This is the final chapter.”
Read below
http://www.maxboxing.com/Gerbasi/Gerbasi072309.asp
Shannon Briggs – The Final Chapter
Like Sylvester Stallone’s iconic Rocky Balboa, Shannon Briggs still has “some stuff in the basement.” At 37 years old and a little over two years removed from his last prize fight, the man who was once touted to be boxing’s savior wants to try one more time.
You’ve no doubt heard that story before - the man on the wrong side of 35 looking to recapture glory in the hardest game. And you know how it usually ends. But heavyweight boxing, circa 2009, isn’t what it used to be, and no one is more aware of that fact than Briggs, the Brownsville product who once held a portion of what was once considered the most prestigious title in all of sports.
“The heavyweight division’s dead,” said Briggs. “So my question to the world is, who better than me? Who’s big enough? It damn sure ain’t Chris Arreola. Who’s strong enough? It’s not (David) Haye or Arreola. And who’s experienced or fast enough? I’m faster than all these young boys that they’ve got coming up. I’m faster than Haye, I’m faster than Chris and Kevin Johnson, and I’m more experienced, bigger, and stronger than them. So why not come back and at least try to bring the belt back to America?”
In a nutshell, that’s Shannon Briggs, and for all the over the top proclamations, he still remains an intriguing enough figure that seeing him back in action and making a run at the top would, at the very least, be interesting for a division that needs all the help it can get. He knows it too, so it’s why, a year after his dismal title-losing performance against Sultan Ibragimov in June of 2007, he decided that it was time to get off the couch and into the gym. That didn’t last long though.
“When I took off, I wasn’t shy about eating,” he laughs, admitting that he ballooned up to as much as 330 pounds. But three months ago, he finally decided that if he was going to make another run at this, he had to start getting serious. And he has been.
“I’ve been in the gym for three months and I shredded a lot of weight, but I had put on a lot of weight as well,” he said. “Now I gotta get it all off.”
Then it will be back to the drawing board, something he didn’t ever imagine he would be saying at 37, especially not after he knocked out Sergey Liakhovich with one second left in the 12th round to win the WBO heavyweight title in November of 2006. But what should have been the crowning glory of a rollercoaster career that saw him go from media darling to pariah and everything in between instead became a nightmare. Yet even going through a nightmare was preferable to being ignored by a public that put little value in the heavyweight title.
“I damn near cried when I won the title,” said Briggs. “I’m the WBO heavyweight champion of the world, I broke up this Russian domination, and you had no stories about it. I was devastated. Ebony, Jet magazine, Essence, even the black people didn’t give a #$%$ about me. (Laughs) But I won’t lie, I was hurt.”
It got worse when Briggs was immediately tossed into negotiations for a bout against Sultan Ibragimov. The fight was originally scheduled for March of 2007 in New York’s Madison Square Garden, but was postponed when Briggs came down with walking pneumonia, which - coupled with his asthma - made even walking up the stairs an ordeal. Doctors from both camps soon examined Briggs, putting his recovery time anywhere from three months to a year. The fight was rescheduled for three months later, June 2nd, but Briggs was in no shape to fight, mentally or physically. Threatened with lawsuits and being stripped of his title, he went along with the bout. The result was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
“I get off my couch, jump on a plane, go to AC, walk in the ring, lose a decision, and I still almost knocked his little ass out in the first round,” said Briggs of the fight, which he lost via scores of 119-109, 117-111, and 115-113. In terms of aesthetic value, the dismal nature of the fight was only surpassed by Ibragimov’s next fight, a decision loss to Wladimir Klitschko in February of 2008. Ibragimov hasn’t been seen in the ring since. Briggs was planning to take the same route. But there were no press releases, no teary retirement speeches. He was simply done.
“I wanted it to be it for me,” he said. “I was really tired and I felt really bamboozled to a point. After that fight, I was disgusted. It’s a real dirty game.”
To keep busy, Briggs talked to asthmatic kids and asthma awareness groups, and also raided the refrigerator on a regular basis. But when he did look at the heavyweight division, he didn’t like what he saw.
“When I watch the Klitschko sisters, I just get upset,” said Briggs of IBF/WBO champ Wladimir and WBC champ Vitali. “They’re the worst champions in history because they don’t care to put on an exciting fight and they won’t take any risks. When I watched him (Wladimir) fight (Hasim) Rahman, Rahman had like a three week notice and he didn’t go in there and blast Rahman out in the first round, and I didn’t understand that. You’re the heavyweight champion, they pay you big bucks. You go in there and annihilate him. Every fight is safety-first with this guy. He looks like Lennox Lewis. A lot of people forget how boring Lennox Lewis was. You look at (Evander) Holyfield and (Mike) Tyson and he caught those guys at the end of their careers, and it was always that boring European style – jab, jab, right hand, clinch. People don’t want to see that. I can’t ever see the Garden even letting him (Wladimir) in the doors to watch a basketball game after that Sultan Ibragimov fight. (Laughs) And I’m not afraid of them. Ray Austin got up there and turned into a woman. You can’t do that. You get a guy like Chris Arreola and put him in front of 50,000 Germans yelling and screaming, he might freeze. Me, I’m gonna love it.”
But while fight fans don’t want to see another jab and grab fest from Wladimir Klitschko, they also don’t want to see a replay of Briggs-Ibragimov or the first 11 rounds of Briggs-Liakhovich either. Briggs is aware of this, and he knows what people are saying when they hear of his comeback plans. His response?
“I’m not the best, I’m not the greatest. I’m here right now to make a fight. If you want to fight a fight, call me and I’ll make it a fight. I don’t want to seem like a big-mouthed dude that’s just here to score and make some money. I really want to fight and I really want to win it.”
Then he can leave the sport without the bitter taste he left it with the first time. Still under contract with Don King, and currently working with the man who led Liakhovich and Sam Peter to titles, Ivaylo Gotzev, Briggs hopes to get a couple of comeback fights under his belt before chasing down one or both of the Klitschkos. Can he pull it off? Stranger things have happened in this game, and with his punching power, Briggs is always one punch away from victory. But whether this comeback is successful or not, he makes one thing abundantly clear:
“This is it. This is the final chapter.”
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