By Gav Duthie: Bob Arum recently stated it is impossible to rank the enormity of fights today against those of yesteryear largely because we live in a different time. He was referring to the world of social media and the accessibility of communications. One fighter who has hugely taken advantage of this brand new world is Shannon ‘The Cannon’ Briggs. Briggs to his credit has fought 7 times in exactly 1 year since his comeback in April 2014 after a four year hiatus from the sport.
These fights wouldn’t be described as anything more than bar room brawls but in spite of this he continues to make headlines. Briggs has used the mediums of twitter and Youtube as well as borderline unhealthy stalking to goad Wladimir Klitschko and more recently Deontay Wilder into fighting him. Every piece of work is signed off with #letsgochamp.
Re-defining marketing
In the traditional sense Briggs does not deserve to be anywhere near a title shot. Even with the 7 fights he has had if it weren’t for his public outbursts most fans wouldn’t even know he had returned to the ring. If we compare him to the comeback of Antonio Tarver for example Briggs is far less deserving of world honours. Tarver has only fought twice against decent journeyman Mike Sheppard and prospect come trainer Johnathon Banks. With the latter victory boxrec ranks Tarver #8 in the heavyweight division with Briggs #51. What I am wandering is does it matter about the rankings for the fans? Has Briggs got enough interested in him that they would rather see Wilder or Klitschko fight him as opposed to Tarver or younger prospects like Tyson Fury, Lucas Browne, Andy Ruiz and Mike Perez.
Sanction-able Fight?
Briggs is understandably not ranked with any of the main 4 organisations. Personally I feel he needs to beat someone of note before he should get a shot. I would not be slightly interested in Klitschko fighting him as it would be a waste of our time as well as the two fighters themselves. Klitschko is beyond this in his career and is only looking to fight Fury or unify against Wilder. In the case of Briggs v Wilder though I actually quite fancy this as a voluntary defence.
All American
Wilder is in a different stage of his career as a new champion and for me a win over Briggs would do more for him than some younger prospect. In this case it is marketing over mandatory as Wilder is still building his brand. At the moment Wilder doesn’t have a mandatory challenger with the WBC proposing a fight between Povetkin and Perez being possible for the spot. I’m surprised Wilder hasn’t announced his voluntary defence yet but I think Briggs would be a good choice for him. Briggs is a name and he is the last American champion since Deontay Wilder dating back to 2006. Personally I don’t think Briggs was even that good back then almost 10 years ago. There were some extremely average world champions and Briggs was one of them but him v Wilder is still an interesting fight.
As Wladimir Klitschko recently said “We need to save Shannon Briggs from Shannon Briggs”. Lets get him in the ring with Wilder get him knocked out and we can move on. #letsgochump
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