By Jim Dower: In a card featuring aging fighters on the comeback trail, former World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (48-5-1, 42 KOs) and former Vasiliy Jirov (37-3-1, 31 KOs) will be making their ring returns in separate bouts, both seeing action for the first time in two years later this month on October 17th at the Celebrity Theater, in Phoenix, Arizona. Briggs, 38, hasn’t fought since losing his WBO heavyweight title in a 12 round unanimous decision loss to Russian Sultan Ibragimov in June 2007, will be facing a still to be determined opponent.

Do not look for anything special from him because Briggs hasn’t seen action for quite some time and his skills are likely very rusty and his weight high. Briggs has looked big in recent photos of him, perhaps as big 290 to 300. That weight isn’t as big as you might think because Briggs fought at a muscular 273 in his last fight two years ago and had little fat on his body.

Known for his big power and quick hands, Briggs showed very little of either in his last fight with Ibragimov and looked to be laboring to catch his breath through much of the action. Two years later, Briggs’ stamina can’t improved and one has to worry whether he’ll be wasting his time by making a comeback at this point. Of course, big George Foreman was able to make a comeback at an even older age than Briggs, but then again, Foreman was a more accomplished fighter in his prime and had much better overall power than Briggs.

For Briggs to be successful, he’s going to have to trim off some weight and try to get down to at least 260 to 270 to be successful. He looked like a big bodybuilder in recent years, putting on a lot of muscle that appears to have slowed him down more than it helped him. In looking at his fights from 1995 to 2001, Briggs, then weighing in around 230, looked powerful, quick and was able to throw combinations without tiring.

However, in 2002, Briggs suddenly put on a huge amount of muscle, getting up to 268 almost overnight and didn’t look as quick in losing a 10-round decision to Jameel McCline. Instead of taking off the useless muscle, which appeared to be serving no purpose other than for vanity, Briggs stayed around 260 for the next four years until pumping up to a muscular 273 for a fight against Chris Koval.

Since 2002, Briggs fought largely B land C level fighters and didn’t fight a quality opponent until coming from behind in the 12th round to score a knockout over Sergey Lyakhovich to capture his WBO heavyweight title in November 2006. Seven months later, a 273 pound Briggs was defeated by Ibragimov by a 12 round decision. After that loss, Briggs stayed away from boxing and after awhile, many fans felt that Briggs was through as a fighter. This is why it was surprising that there was an announcement made about him coming back.

As for Jirov, now 35, he’ll be facing American Dominique Alexander (18-7-1, 8 KO’s) in a 10 round bout. Jirov hasn’t fought since beating Kenny Craven by a 2nd round stoppage in July 2007. It’s been a l lot longer than that since Jirov lost his IBF cruiserweight title in a 12 round decision loss to James Toney in 2003. For some reason, Jirov decided to move up to the heavyweight division from 2004 to 2006, and did poorly at that weight class. Jirov was much too thin and weak to compete with the bigger heavyweights and was beaten by Joe Mesi and Michael Moorer.