By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (59-6-1, 52 KOs) says WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) won’t make it passed the 1st round in their proposed fight on January 16th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Briggs, 44, says he was offered $400,000 to fight the talented Wilder next month. Briggs says he asked for $2 million for the fight originally, but eventually agreed to take the fight for $400K.
Briggs says that he would take the fight for free with a winner takes all type of affair. Briggs is so confident that he would beat the hard hitting Wilder that he would take the fight for free.
“This is what cowards say. He’s a coward,” Briggs said about Wilder to TMZ.com. “I just had eight fights. I passed every drug test…They called me and said ‘listen, do you want to fight Deontay?’ I said ‘yes, let’s do it.’ They said ‘Okay, how much money?’ I said ‘$2 million dollars.’ They said ‘We’ll call you back.’ They called back and said ‘We’ll pay you $500,000 dollars.’ I said ‘Let’s go, champ.’ They said ‘We’ll call you right back.’ I said ‘Okay.’ They called back and they said ‘$400,000.’ I said ‘No problem.’ It ain’t about the money. I’ll take winner takes all. I’ll fight for free. Winner take all in Brooklyn. I’m so confident I’ll knock him out. He won’t get past the 1st round.”
Wilder is running out of time to get an opponent for his next fight. His management was hoping to put him in with Vyacheslav Glazkov, but he instead chose to go the IBF route after Tyson Fury won that strap off of Wladimir Klitschko. It’s the safer route for Glazkov, because Fury will soon be stripped of his IBF title for failing to take the fight with Glazkov.
Right now it’s still up in the air whether a fight between the two hard hitting heavyweights will get made. Briggs won’t be getting much of a training camp for the fight if he does wind up facing Deontay because January 16th is just a little over a month away. But if the fight can get made, it’ll be an excellent match-up that would attract a lot of interest from American boxing fans.
For Briggs, he would likely make a lot more money if he could get a fight against former IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in Germany. However, with Wladimir no longer a world champion and his future uncertain with his rematch against Tyson Fury, Briggs can’t count on a fight against Wladimir taking place. It’s too bad that Wladimir didn’t take the fight against Briggs when he was still a world champion because the German boxing fans would have eaten up a fight between Wladimir and Briggs.
Briggs would be the biggest puncher that Deontay has ever faced in his career if the fight takes place. Wilder faced Bermane Stiverne earlier this year in January in a fight that was totally dominated by Deontay. Briggs has explosive punching power. What he doesn’t have is the mobility that Deontay possesses or the hand speed. Additionally, Wilder has the reach advantage over Briggs.
Besides the Briggs, Wilder also could face Amir Mansour (22-1-1, 16 KOs). He’s one of the options.
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