By BT95: Shannon Briggs (59-6-1, 52 KO’s) is slated to face Alexander Dimitrenko (38-2, 24 KO’s) on the May 21st David Haye undercard. Briggs who is no stranger to delivering vicious knockouts was left very impressed by the recent 2nd round knockout performance of Anthony Joshua (16-0, 16 KO’s) against American heavyweight Charles Martin.
Briggs who spent more than a month in England ingratiating himself to the British boxing public was able to meet the young Joshua in person for the first time. “He’s the nicest guy in the world, I like Anthony Joshua a lot. He’s the future of the sport as long as Eddie Hearn keeps him away from me.” said Shannon Briggs as he spoke glowingly about the young British Heavyweight.
The Olympic gold medalist seems well on his way to super stardom as he recently signed a deal with Showtime to have his fights televised in America. The platform is being made for Joshua to become a global star in boxing with Sky Sports and now Showtime backing him on television.
Briggs who’s caught the attention of the boxing world with his “Let’s Go Champ” movement hold Joshua in high regard especially after witnessing what he did to Charles Martin in only 2 rounds. “Right before the fight with Martin I was asked on Sky Sports what was going to happen and I said he would win by explosive knockout and he did. He he made easy work of it and he blew me away” Said Briggs.
Joshua was able to attain over 400,000 pay-per view buys in only his 15th professional fight which says something about the support British boxing fans show Joshua. With names like Tyson Fury and David Haye the timing seems to be right for Joshua to gain the mass appeal of not just the British boxing world, but the Boxing world at large so maybe Shannon is onto something here.
Joshua will take on another undefeated American heavyweight promoted by Al Haymon in Dominic Breazeale (17-0, 15 KO’s) as he makes his first defense of his IBF heavyweight title. Breazeale presents an interesting challenge to Joshua being that he has Olympic pedigree, has knocked out 88% of his opponents and is slightly taller than Joshua who is used to being the bigger man. Breazeale is a good fight stylistically for Joshua considering that he was outboxed in his last fight by seasoned heavyweight vet Amir Mansour.
The boxing world is at the finger tips of Joshua and if he stays focused, he could be the type of fighter that the sport needs in the post Mayweather-Pacquiao era.