Old Shannon Briggs vs. Young Shannon Briggs

The Briggs against Foreman. I like chin and workrate against one-punch power.

 

This would be interesting.

A spry younger Briggs gives walking statue ballooned up Briggs a massive beating but suddenly collapses from exhaustion after just a couple of rounds. A battered Old Briggs earns the TKO but spends the month in the hospital, young Briggs goes out dancing all night. :huh

 

I am still laughing. I think Mongoose is spot on. Prime Briggs lost fair and square to Darroll Wilson for christ's sake. And the Lyokavich fight was a lucky win after he was being outclassed all night. Briggs was all hype and never a good fighter. And he was a shitty actor to boot. (See "Transporter 2"). In fact, the only thread I want to read about Briggs would be a fantasy matchup between Shannon and Jason Statham. (I go with Statham by 11th round TKO after the obesely juiced-up Briggs collapses)

 

And truth be told, the White Wolf was lighting in a bottle himself. He fought one beautiful inspired fight against Brewster, but he never looked that good before that night or after...maybe the early rounds against Helenius he showed some fire again. Reason he was there, he was supposed to be an easy night's work for Brewster, than came out there fearlessly throwing head/body combinations like he was the stiff lumbering reincarnation of Dempsey. Against Briggs, he suddenly became a timid sloth again, refusing to let his hands go against a statue before walking into a telegraphed punch with a stinker of a fight in the bag.

Briggs blew up in just a few rounds against Wilson as well as Lewis. McCline spanked him, and his big win over a semi-retired Foreman was infamously controversial.

Briggs is big, seemingly durable when not dead on his feet tired, and hits hard, but young or old, he doesn't have the stamina to fight more than a few rounds at any kind of pace unless he's against an opponent with worse stamina like REALLY Old Foreman or just taking a beating and doing nothing in return like against McCline, Vitali, and White Tiger.

 

It would be a mismatch.

Young Briggs would win easily.

Would you even want to see what Lewis would do to the Briggs of the Lyakovich fight?

 

Unlike with Big George, absolutely nothing about Old Shannon was an improvement.

He came within seconds of very clearly losing on points to Liakhovich before perhaps the most frustrating eleventh-hour implosion in a championship match in two decades.

Young Briggs might well not have needed that stroke of timely luck, possibly dispatching the Wolf a great deal earlier.

 

Durability, Chin?

 

No.

 

I don't think his chin or his power improved. :conf

Sure, he looked more ripped as he jacked himself up in the weight room over the years, but as far as functional strength, explosive power? Nah...

Does anyone think 90's Briggs wouldn't have finished off a wide-open breathless Liakhovich? :huh

...or that he couldn't have rattled off KO1s of the clown car he emptied out and demolished during his 2010 run en route to his challenge of Vitali Klitschko? (Pedro, Alexander, and Calloway in case you forgot, which you did...three real aces with twenty-five stoppage losses among them...)

As far as his durability, avoid the pitfall of reading too much into his going twelve with Vitali.

1) Klitschko was never extraordinarily powerful or a one-punch KO artist; his rate of stoppage is comprised of mostly accumulation deals.

2) Klitschko vs. Briggs should have been stopped long before the final bell, going down as yet another "VKO", or TKO via accumulation.

3) He may not have gone down but he was hardly laughing off every shot, and was laid reeling and on the verge of going down (or losing consciousness) more than a dozen times.


38 year old Briggs was no tougher than the thirty-one year old version dropped by McCline, twenty-seven year old version creamed by Botha, twenty-six year old version kayoed by Lewis, or twenty-four year old kayoed by Wilson. To suggest he would've avoided the fate of his younger self versus any of those opponents is silly.

 

Briggs gained a lot of weight and power as he aged. His neck was much thicker. The older Briggs was more durable, the younger one a bit faster.

Keep in mind the older Briggs took flush shots from Liakhovich, and Ibragimov without showing nay signs of being hurt. Both guys had some power. Briggs also took a beating from Klitschko, and suffered a broken face, and slipped into a coma after the fight. The man was game.

The younger Briigs was taken out by Wilson, who wan not in Liakhovich's class as a pucnher, and from from Ibragimov or Kltischko's class as a puncher.

Briggs said Vitali hit harder than Foreman.

 

I remember watching Briggs vs Vitali and remarking at how Briggs' muscularity was such a hindrance to his ability to box and move against Vitali who is not known for his speed of hand and foot. He was pot shotted to death and was immobile and unable to avoid all those punches. It was painful to watch and a reminder that big muscles do not a great heavyweight make.

 

Vitali has always moved his feet well.