Briggs-Klitschko: Shannon says he has to be in Lance Armstrong shape to beat Vitali

By Matt Stein: Former World Boxing Organization (WBO) heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (51-5-1, 45 KO’s) realizes that for him to make the most of his big opportunity in his title challenge of World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (40-2, 38 KO’s) on October 16th.

Briggs has to come into the fight in tip top shape to do that. Briggs is 38 now, and will be fighting the 39-year-old Vitali at the O2 World Arena, in Hamburg, Germany on October 16th.

Briggs is going to be the guest fighter, meaning he’s probably got little chance of winning a decision over there unless he does something really miraculous like knocking Vitali down three or four times in the fight.

But if Briggs is able to knock Vitali down that many times in the fight, chances are high that Vitali would stop getting up at some point in the fight because Briggs too hard and when he has his opponents down, they tend to stay down. Few boxing experts are giving Briggs any real chance in this fight mostly because of his age and inactivity over the past three years.

Briggs lost his WBO heavyweight title to Sultan Ibragimov in June 2007, losing by a 12 round unanimous decision. If you compare how listless and tired looking Briggs looked in that fight and compare his previous performance seven months earlier in November 2006 against Sergei Liakhovich, it’s like two different fighters.

Against Liakhovich, Briggs was throwing bombs and looked a lot better in taking him out in the 12th with a late rally. However, against Ibragimov, Briggs looked like he wasn’t prepared to be out there that night. It wasn’t that he was a shot fighter all of a sudden; it more a case of Briggs not being in the best shape for that fight mentally and physically.

After taking some time off from boxing, Briggs came back to the sport with a new love for it in 2009 and has quickly piled up three straight 1st round knockouts coming into the October 16th fight against Vitali Klitschko.
In terms of offensive weapons, Briggs has the advantage over the 39-year-old Klitschko.

There’s no comparison between the two at this point. Briggs still has his incredibly fast hands and huge power, whereas Vitali, who was always slow of hand and foot to begin with, has become even slower in the past year. Vitali can still hit hard, but he’s having a tougher time landing his shots because of his lack of hand speed.

We saw that in his fights with Alberto Sosnowski and Kevin Johnson recently. Vitali is seemingly unable to land his right hands now unless his opponent is standing perfectly still and not doing anything.

Mostly, Vitali is limited to jabbing and throwing short left hooks without a lot of power on them. Briggs is going to be a real threat to Vitali in the early part of this fight because of Briggs’ huge power, big size and fast hands. Briggs has one punch knockout power in either hand and he can get Vitali in trouble even when backing up and throwing a short left hook.

This is going to be a very tough fight for Vitali to try and win, because at this point in his career, he’s even slower and more wide open than Liakhovich was in his loss to Briggs.

Briggs plans on being in the best shape of his life for this fight, saying in an artile at the Miamiherald.com, “I have to leave it out there because I am fighting a great champion. I have to be in Lance Armstrong shape. When I beat Sergei [Liakhovich] for the title, I let myself down. I partied like I was a rock star, and I didn’t focus on what I should have done.”

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