By Euan Gilchrist: As I sat down earlier this week to watch Buncies Boxing Hour (which is a low budget TV show screened in the UK on Boxnation), I expected the usual fare of boxing banter, and world boxing news and a recap of the weekends action. I was surprised and delighted when Steve Bunce was joined on the phone by former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (51-6, 45 KO’s).
With the farcical YouTube video doing the rounds at the moment of Briggs losing his mind and throwing his shoes at an unresponsive Wladimir Klitschko, it’s easy to view him as a clown and to forget that he has fought some of the best heavyweights from the last 50 years in George Foreman, Lennox Lewis and Vitali Klitschko. For that reason alone I think that the man shouldn’t be treated as a joke.
Although I doubt that Briggs is motivated to come back to the sport for the glory and is most likely looking for a payday (as he admitted to Bunce he was flat broke), it was a breath of fresh air to be entertained by a heavyweight fighter shooting the breeze. He is an absorbing character and heavyweight boxing needs characters.
I think Briggs as the last American Heavyweight Champion is looking to cash in on that status and be given a payday against a name and personally I’d like to see it. He’s 42 years old, which isn’t ancient in the world of heavyweights, and we know what he’s capable of doing. With the Heavyweight division being so stagnant the past few years nobody really knows how good anybody is.
Briggs could be the yardstick. From a British point of view, I’d like to see him fight the winner of Tyson Fury vs. Dereck Chisora. Whoever wins that is going to be treading water for a long time waiting for that mandatory WBO shot against Wladimir, so why not keep busy in a fight that would bring in a big crowd?
All in all I don’t expect Briggs comeback to be a huge success for him, but I do hope that he gets a fight against a name and he is in good enough shape to do himself justice. He is a crazy guy that I just wouldn’t want anything personally to do with, but from the safety of my front room I enjoy watching him on TV, he’s colorful, charismatic and maybe out of his mind. He’s everything that the heavyweight division is lacking at the moment and I wish him all the luck in the world for his comeback.
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