Frank Bruno vs Shannon Briggs

Prime for prime, this would be a slugfest. I think Bruno is very vulnerable to being caught cold here. If it goes longer than five rounds Bruno is a favorite due to his solid work behind a ramrod jab, but Briggs could start fast, and I don't know if Frank deals with it that well.

Briggs TKO2. There, I said it.

 

Bruno wins this. In his prime Bruno only got beat by great fighters.

 

Bruno more proven. Briggs would try and jump all over him and would have some success but I don't believe enough to stop Bruno who would recover and stop Briggs before both completely gas by round 7 and stumble around.

 

I think it's a close bout as well. Frank stands a real chance of getting starched by this guy. And Briggs is going to have a tough time absorbing those Bruno combos.

My guess is it all boils down to where the fight takes place as to who wins. Make Bruno take his act on the road and fight Shannon in america and he loses. Make Shannon fight the guy in London and it's Bruno with his hand raised.

But between the 2, their resumes are razor thin over beating good guys in their prime with a pulse. Lots of pillaging of the graveyards in the opponent selection department. minimal wins against elite competition.

That said, a match like this never gets made. Opponent too dangerous. They'd go after a guy with a sloppy defense and a foot in the grave instead.... like an old Alex Stewart type guy.

 

Bruno never lost to the Wilson's of this world......and as far as punching power, Briggs has never ever stopped a quality opponent and no, that C level White Wolf dont count either, his resume is literally the whos who of bums.

Shannon Briggs is/was always a pretender.

Anyway Bruno by KO, no matter what country they fight in.

 

^ this

 

Witherspoon?

 

I'm not saying Briggs accomplished more than Bruno -- but when Bruno could not work at his methodical pace, he could cover up and hope for the best. When he was crowded with speed and power he seemed vulnerable.

Considering Briggs had Lewis hurt in there twice, its not hard to picture him doing this to the slower and defensively inferior Bruno.

Shannon Briggs around the Lennox Lewis fight was a dangerous fighter, especially early.

 

Yea, those foot in the grave types that Bruno fought like Tyson,Lewis,
Witherspoon,Smith and McCall.

 

Bruno was never going to beat Tyson. He's made to order.

The other guys like Lewis was a title opportunity. Came in 15 pounds heavier than his previous fight witherspoon was a title fight. A silver platter---a heavy Tim taking the fight in London. And Bruno wins the early rounds. how big of a platter did the guy need to win anyway?

I don't know anyone that holds Bonecrusher Smith in high esteem. Now, lets take smith and have him lose the first 9 rounds against an opponent. Just how many guys is Smith going to ko in the last round? Another silver platter.

McCall. Frank barely made it through the fight. And at the end of the day, it's still oliver McCall. Same guy that didn't exactly look like an A+ fighter in his previous bout against Holmes.

Did you actually think McCall was going to make a bunch of successful title defenses or something? I sure didn't. He's fortunate to have made the grand total of 1.

At any rate, Tyson was numero uno the first time they fought. Second time around, He was the silver platter to feed to Mike so Tyson could get the title back.

So these guys above at the time like Spoon/Smith/Oliver were more like the 5-10 best heavies at the time. And more importantly, a match that was winnable as far as Bruno opponents under consideration. There were other fighters to not fight like a Holyfield, and fight the above guys instead.

Still, better than the Briggs opponent list. That's using boxrec to accurately predict the outcome. Real easy and a real lazy way to do things.

Try looking at styles and defense. Bruno's defense and ability to absorb punches if caught by a shot from Briggs. And Briggs' ability to absorb combos from a guy with a much higher workrate. Once either guy gets hurt, it's likely all over.

I think Shannon can definately penetrate that hand placement of Bruno. You apparently do not. Those elbow out guys always get hit clean. But he has about 4 rounds to do it in, unless he pulls off a Liakhovich thing. Which is something that can happen as well to Bruno as well--look how far he was ahead of Smith in the cards before he folded up the tent.

 

Compared to Briggs, Witherspoon was good (when he was on)

 

both Big strong and stiff as hell, Briggs took a better punch

 

Bruno probably had a better skillset

 

Bruno did lack the killer instinct necessary to deal with Briggs' first round flurry...if he could drag him into the later rounds he has this in the bag.