Shannon Briggs: I’m running Haye out of England!

By Boxing News - 05/22/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: The powerful Shannon Briggs (60-6-1, 53 KOs) picked up his ninth straight victory in his comeback last Saturday night in defeating the capable Emilio Ezequiel Zarate (20-17-3, 11 KOs) by a 1st round knockout at the O2 Arena in London, England.

Briggs sealed the victory with a monstrous left hook to the body that had Zarate on the canvas looking like he was in agony from the shot. The victory for Briggs puts him in an important fight with former two division world champ David Haye (28-2, 26 KOs), who won his fight in the main event on the same card in defeating Arnold Gjergjaj (29-1, 21 KOs) in stopping him in the 2nd round.

Briggs clearly stole the show with his more impressive performance in stopping the 34-year-old Zarate. Briggs attracted the most interest on the card, oddly enough. The Haye-Gjergjaj fight was more like the walk out fight that was a mere after though to the real main event on the card.

Briggs says he wants to take Haye’s scalp when the two of them face each other in September. That’s the fight that Briggs wants, and he says he wants to kick Haye out of England so that he can be the new king of the hill over there. With the way Briggs fought last night, I must say he has a very good chance of giving Haye royal whipping in September if Haye can make it to the fight without suffering some kind of debilitating injury. I mean, you never know with Haye because he can get injured at any time, and that would wipe out a fight against Briggs.

This isn’t a situation where Briggs is young and can wait around for two or three years while Haye licks his training wounds before he gets inside the ring again. Briggs is 44 and he needs to have Haye show up for the fight in September in one piece and without any injury excuses afterwards.

“Tell David Haye I’m going to knock him out when I see him,” said Briggs to the media. “I told David Haye I’m running him out of England. This is my house now. He’s a family man. He seems like a nice guy. He’s a pretty boy. I’m the ugly one. He’s pretty and I’m ugly. So it’s a great match-up. Let’s go champ!” said Briggs.

Haye might be thinking to himself ‘what did I get myself into by agreeing to fight Briggs? This guy looks heck a dangerous. No thanks.’ I have to admit that Briggs is looking very good now. His win last night over Zarate was his eighth knockout win in his nine fights of his comeback. Only one guy [Raphael Zumbano Love] has gone the distance with Briggs since he launched his comeback in 2014.

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“The first right hand that nailed him was a really big shot, and I was surprised he got up from it. I was very, very surprised. Most people would be sleeping for a good few minutes, but he got up to his credit. He got clumped a few more times, but I was very happy with this performance. That would be a big fight [against Briggs], a huge fight. I was walking down the street and people actually said to me ‘fight Shannon Briggs because he’s in the press, he’s in the papers.’ He’s going to fights screaming and shouting. I’m in boxing for big fight, and at the moment other than the champions and a fight for the heavyweight championship of the world, I can’t think of a bigger fight for myself than Shannon Briggs. I used to think that it was hilarious when he [Briggs] was chasing Wladimir Klitschko around. It was really funny. I used to watch it on Youtube and crack up. Then he was doing it to Deontay Wilder, and I thought it was really funny. I thought it was hilarious; he’s chasing these guys around. Then he started doing it to me, and it really wasn’t funny at all,” said Haye.

Look at Haye bellyaching now about Briggs. I think I smell fear. Like I said, I believe that Haye is starting to have second thoughts about the wisdom of him electing to fight Briggs. He’s now starting to come to terms with the fact that he’s got a guy that could ruin his dreams for a big payday/cash out fight against IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua with one big body shot.

All it will take for Briggs to bring Haye’s dreams of a money fight against Joshua crashing down around him is a well-placed body shot that leaves Haye sniffing the canvas. Haye wants the Joshua fight. That’s the real target for Haye. If not for Briggs pressing the issue, we’d likely see Haye take on two or three more Gjergjaj like opponents before getting his payday fight against Joshua in 2017. In other words, Haye would be fighting nothing but soft jobs with zero chance of causing an upset against him. We saw how useless Gjergjaj was last night in the ring against Haye.

Gjergjaj was just hanging around, soaking up punishment and falling down every now and then. Haye put Gjergjaj down four times in the fight. I still don’t know why Gjergjaj didn’t throw any punches. He was just there for Haye to nail with shots. I thought it was worse than seeing Haye fight a sparring partner. It was more like Haye hitting a 6’5” heavy bag with arms, because he wasn’t getting hit back because the guy was just there in body but not doing anything.

If Briggs hadn’t pushed for the fight against Haye, I’m betting we’d have seen Haye fight Gjergjaj type opposition right up until Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn would give him the fight. Believe me, we wouldn’t see Haye take any real risks against someone that could possibly beat him like Dillian Whyte, Kubrat Pulev or Luis Ortiz.

“Anthony Joshua is a fight I’d absolutely relish. I’m a fan but it’s a fight I want. Next up for me is Shannon Briggs. How did he look?” said Haye via skysports.com.”He came to England and talked a big game. I told him I’d fight him so me and Briggs [are] on a collision course for September. Let’s go, chump! I know a lot of people thought I’m the past but I’m the future. I felt amazing,” he told Dave TV. “I felt sharp, fast and my timing was great,” said Haye.