Shannon Briggs stops Zoltan Petranyi in 1st round KO

By Boxing News - 03/28/2015 - Comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU0pXgdWqIM

By Jim Dower: 43-year-old #6 WBA heavyweight contender Shannon Briggs (58-6-1, 51 KOs) won his seventh straight victory on Friday night in stopping an over-match 48-year-old journeyman Zoltan Petranyi (51-22-1, 16 KOs) in the 1st round at the Hotel Sortis in Panama City, Panama.

Briggs dropped Petranyi twice with hard shots to the midsection. After the second knockdown of a badly hurt Petranyi the refere stepped in and halted the fight at 1:52 of the round.

As usual, Briggs showed good punching power, and as usual his opponent did not look at all good. Petranyi lost his second straight fight by knockout.

For Briggs, he captured his 6th knockout in his 7 fights of his comeback. All 6 of Briggs’ knockouts have come in the 1st round, which kind of tells you a lot about the type of opposition that Briggs has been facing during his comeback.

Despite facing weak opposition each time out, Briggs is being steadily pushed up the rankings by the World Boxing Association. It doesn’t seem to matter that he’s not facing any higher caliber opposition. The WBA is still pushing him up the rankings.

It’s unclear if IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko will be giving Briggs a title shot without him becoming the mandatory challenger to his WBA belt. If Wladimir decides he’s not going to give Briggs a freebee, then it’ll probably take Briggs another year, possibly two for him to get a title shot.

The WBA may or may not require that Briggs fight in an eliminator bout to fight for a world title. My guess is they won’t force him to fight anyone good. If Briggs faces someone like Tyson Fury, Bryant Jennings, Alexander Povetkin, or Lucas Browne, he may find out that he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

Those guys likely won’t fold up after getting hit in the body in the 1st round like six of Briggs’ opponents have done. Those guys are likely to be still standing there and firing back with big shots.

I don’t know if Briggs will be able to handle getting hit back hard for 12 full rounds. However, it’s likely that Wladimir will give Briggs a shot at his WBA title without him having to fight in an eliminator bout. It’s easy money for Wladimir if he faces Briggs, and his fans in Germany will enjoy the fight even if it turns out to be a one-sided mismatch from start to finish.



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