By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champ Deontay Wilder (34-0, 33 KOs) has reportedly been offered $2 million for face former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (58-6-1, 51 KOs) in less than two months from now on September 5th at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida, according to FightNews.com.
It’s a decent fight if Wilder opts to take it in terms of it being a stay busy fight to get him ready for his mandatory defense in early 2016 against #1 WBC Alexander Povetkin.
It’s no secret that Briggs and Wilder have had some bad blood for a while.
The two fighters jawed at each other before IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko’s last fight in April against Bryant Jennings at a press conference.
Wilder might be better off facing #12 WBC Chris Arreola next in September if he beats Fred Kassi in their fight on July 18th in El Paso, Texas. Wilder vs. Arreola would be a big deal and would likely do good ratings on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC. Arreola’s name has been mentioned as a strong possibility for Wilder to face, but Arreola just needs to get a victory over Kassi and look superb in doing so. For Arrreola, that’s easier said than done because he hasn’t looked great since he destroyed Seth Mitchell in one round in September 2013.
Briggs has won seven consecutive fights over weak opposition since launching his comeback in 2014. Of the seven fights, Briggs has scored six 1st round knockouts. In his last fight, Briggs destroyed Zoltan Petranyi by a 1st round knockout in March of this year. It has been four months since Briggs last fought, and it’s unclear why he’s been out of the ring for so long. He’d been fighting on a regular basis before that with him fighting ever one to three months. Hopefully for his sake he’s not injured.
Before this offer for Briggs and Wilder fight, Briggs, #5 WBA, was focusing on trying to get a big money fight against Wladimir. However, the Ukrainian fighter has shown zero interest in wanting to fight the 43-year-old American fighter. With Wladimir not willing to pull the trigger on the Briggs fight despite the huge interest in Germany in seeing the two of them mix it up, Briggs appears to be turning his attention to a fight against Wilder. I’m not sure that’s the best thing for Briggs to do.
The cash that Briggs would get for a fight against Wladimir might be better than what he’d get for a bout against the 6’7” Deontay. All Briggs needs to do to become Wladimir’s eventual WBA mandatory challenger is to keep winning fights for another year or two, and he’ll be there. Briggs would help his situation immensely if he were to beat an actual top 10 contender like Fres Oquendo, Bryant Jennings, Joseph Parker, Antonio Tarver, Mark De Mori, Francesco Pianeta, David Price or Andrey Fedosov. If Briggs could beat one or two of those guys and take their scalps, he would be a shoe in for the No.1 spot with the World Boxing Association and would then be fighting for a world title against Wladimir.
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