By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs reportedly barged in on IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko’s camp this morning in South Florida just before Klitschko was getting ready to spar, according to Fightnews.com.

Wladimir had the tape on his hands, but his gloves still weren’t on at that point. Briggs trash talked Wladimir and the two came close to blows before Briggs was separated by Michael Moorer.

Briggs, 42, is four fights into a comeback and he’s made it no secret that he wants Wladimir to give him a world title shot. Briggs recently interrupted one of Wladimir’s workouts at the same gym in Florida.

Briggs also showed up at a Wladimir press conference with Alex Leapai last April, but surprisingly the security let Briggs hang around without giving him the boot.

Wladimir isn’t interested in using an optional title shot to fight Briggs. The only way that Briggs is going to be able to get a crack at Wladimir is if he continues to win his fights, and gets ranked as Wladimir’s No.1 mandatory challenger by one of the four sanctioning bodies.

Briggs might get lucky and have one of the sanctioning bodies give him the No.1 mandatory spot without making him fight a top five contender. We just saw Ruslan Chagaev fight Fres Oquendo for the vacant WBA heavyweight title. But the chances are that Briggs is going to need to prove that he can beat a good heavyweight to get a shot at Wladimir.

Briggs is going to need to step up the level of his opposition in the near future if he wants to get a title shot in the next 3 years because he’s ranked only #14 by the WBA, and that’s a long ways away from Briggs getting a title shot. He could languish there for ages without getting a title shot if he doesn’t start facing better opposition.

In his four fights of his comeback, Briggs has beaten the following fighters: Raphael Zumbano Love, Matthew Greer, Francisco Mireles and Maurenzo Smith.

Wladimir is currently getting ready for his September 6th title defense against his #1 IBF mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev (20-0, 11 KOs) at the O2 World Arena, Altona, Hamburg, Germany.