By Dave Lahr: Former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (51-5-1, 45 KO’s) pulled a little bit if trickery on WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (40-2, 38 KO’s) by making him think that he would be coming in light for the fight in the low 240s. Instead, Briggs weighed in at 262 at Friday’s weigh-in, which is about as much as Briggs has been weighing in most of his fights in the past nine years.

I had a feeling Briggs was pulling the wool over Klitschko’s eyes in looking at Briggs’ physique when he kept taking his shirt off during the press conferences. He didn’t look like a fighter in the low 240s. He looked much bigger than.

This is going to be bad for Vitali, because he weighed in at only 251, and he’s going to be the smaller fighter, along with being the slower and weaker puncher. The two will be meeting on Saturday night at the O2 World Arena, in Hamburg, Germany.

Klitschko has been taking on soft opponents during his comeback in 2008, and this is going to be the first time he’s faced a fighter with huge power and good size. Samuel Peter had good power, but he was far too slow and too short to compete with Vitali.

But the 6’4” Briggs has the size, hand speed and power to take Vitali out in short order. This is going to be a good fight with a lot of blood dripping on the canvas from Vitali’s eyes.

I’m giving Vitali two rounds before the blood starts flowing from his face and he starts to resemble the same fighter that was cut to ribbons by Lennox Lewis in 2003. Briggs is even bigger than Lewis, and a lot faster. I don’t see how Vitali is going to be able to compete with a guy like this at this late stage in his career.