By Allan Fox: After months of pursuing a fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (63-3, 53 KOs), it’s starting to look like it’s going to pay off for the soon to be 43-year-old former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (57-6-1, 50 KOs).
Wladimir, 38, is saying that he’s interested in the fight if the German public wants to see it. For some odd reason, Wladimir’s German boxing fans are highly interested in seeing him fight Briggs even though Briggs hasn’t fought a quality heavyweight in four years since Briggs was soundly beaten by Wladimir’s older brother former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in a 12 round unanimous decision loss in 2010.
Before that fight, Briggs hadn’t fought a decent heavyweight since his one-sided loss to Sultan Ibragimov back in 2007.
Briggs, now ranked #7 by the World Boxing Association, has won his last six fights of his comeback against largely woeful opposition in order to get the #7 ranking by the WBA. Briggs has beaten Maurenzo Smith, Francisco Mireles, Matthew Greer, Raphael Zumbano Love, Cory Phelps and Richard Carmack. Based on those wins, you can make an argument that Briggs doesn’t deserve to be ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies due to his opposition being too poor.
“I want what the fans want, also Briggs,” Wladimir said to the German news publication BILD as quoted by Fightnews.com.
It’s interesting how different the German boxing fans see the Wladimir-Briggs fight from fans elsewhere around the world, because not too many fans are eager to see Wladimir fight Briggs. Fans outside of Germany prefer to see Wladimir take on the likes of Bermane Stiverne, Tyson Fury, Dereck Chisora, Deontay Wilder, Bryant Jennings or Chris Arreola.
Briggs’ name is rarely mentioned as someone that fans would like to see Wladimir face. That, of course, could change if Briggs would start taking on contenders instead of 3rd tier opposition, but it doesn’t look like Briggs has any intention of doing that. With the WBA giving Briggs a high ranking based on weak opposition, he doesn’t really need to face quality opposition to keep getting pushed up the world rankings.
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