By Dave Lahr: It’s been a little over 10 years since Vitali Klitschko (40-2, 38 KO’s) quit on his stool after the 9th round against Chris Byrd in April 2000. Vitali met a fighter that wasn’t going to be intimidated by him in the young Byrd. On October 16th, Klitschko will be facing the big puncher former World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Shannon “The Cannon” Briggs (51-5-1, 45 KO’s) at the O2 World Arena, Altona, in Hamburg, Germany. You have to wonder whether Klitschko, 39, will quit again when the going gets tough for him against Briggs.

I know Briggs isn’t going to be afraid of Klitschko, and he won’t just back up and give in like many of Klitschko’s previous opponents did. Unlike the guys that have been spoon fed to Vitali recently, Briggs can actually punch and great hand speed and size to boot. Briggs is a bigger puncher than Vitali. The only thing separates these two fighters is a mere three inches in height for the 6’7” Vitali over the 6’4” Briggs. The height is meaningless, though, because Briggs’ reach is identical to Vitali’s at 80” inches.

This means that Vitali won’t have any physical advantages in this fight whatsoever. In fact, it will be Briggs who will have the advantages in speed, power and the better jab. The only thing that Vitali will have going for him in this fight is the German crowd. Since the fight will be taking place in Hamburg, Germany, Klitschko will have the crowd support on his side. But that’s meaningless, because Briggs is a professional and has fought in the past in hostile arena where all the fans were rooting against him.

Briggs is going to shut out the fans and focus on taking Vitali apart punch by punch and breaking him down until he quits on his stool. Klitschko doesn’t even have to formally quit. He can mentally quit where he stops trying after tasting some of Brigg’s big power. The important thing here is for Briggs to get Vitali’s attention early in the fight by tagging him as hard as he can to make Klitschko afraid.

Once Klitschko has had a taste of Briggs’ big power, he’s going to turn tail and run to the outside and try to control the fight with his pawing jabs, slow left hooks and short right hands. It will be nothing short arm shots from Vitali, because he doesn’t have the hand speed to punch with Briggs. He won’t even try. Vitali is just going to throw arm punches and hope that he can control the fight in that manner, which is what he’s been doing against the mediocre opposition that he’s been picking out recently.

Briggs will be throwing his cannon shots and Klitschko will be responding with weak rifle fire from his arm punches. I think Briggs can blow Klitschko out of the water in the first three rounds if he opens up with his artillery enough to get Vitali doubting himself and then thinking about quitting on us.