Best five wins thread. Lineal / Ring Magazine heavyweight champions.

Briggs was awful. Period. Sharkey is a much better fighter period. Trying to tear down Sharkey’s wins when Briggs has no wins of merit is a disservice to Sharkey.

Briggs Vs Ancient Foreman GIFT
Briggs vs Liakhovich Hail Mary Ko - his lone career win against a top 10 opponent in 60 plus wins.
Ancient Mercer that may have gone in tank.

He even blew his coming out Hbo party against Wilson.

The highlight of his career is wobbling Lewis before being KO’d and taking a serious one sided non competitive beating and the hands of Vitali.

He showed heart.
But his career resume is awful. If he didn’t get the gift against Foreman who lost to Schulz and struggled with Savarese by this point his career would be totally forgotten.

 

Basically Briggs' bulked body is the only remarkable thing in his carrier.

 

That should never be in question.

Briggs should be honored to clean Sharkey's spit bucket!

A lot of people were very high on Lamon Brewster when Lyakovich unexpectedly beat him.

Brewster was coming off knockouts of Wlad and Golotta, and some said that he was the best heavyweight in the world.

The fight was a real war, and it was hailed as one of the best fights of the decade!

Lyakovicch called out Wlad, for a unification fight, and many on this forum said that Wlad would be scared to take it!

Then Briggs happened!

 

It's not controversy, it's one of the clearest robberies I've ever seen. People basically didn't want Foreman to be the champion anymore so they gifted Briggs with decision.

 

Then they gifted it to the right man.

At last he went on to be something!

 

I can't agree with you here. Briggs was tough and he showed heart against Lewis and Vitali but that's not enough for a champion. You know how low I am on Tua and I wouldn't think twice to pick him over Briggs - both in terms of resume and H2H.

 

OK, I never thought much of Briggs anyway.

I have been more than fair to him!

 

Tua was a legit heavyweight contender. He let himself down with bad conditioning but Briggs is nowhere near Tua’s league

 

Briggs accomplished far more!

I don't even see how that can be argued?

 

A gift over Foreman?

Tua holds wins over Rahman, Maskaev, Oquendo, Moorer, Ruiz.
Are you being sarcastic?

 

I'll give Briggs a go. I was pretty high on him prior to the Wilson fight, then I lost a bunch of respect for him. That lack of respect deepened when he continued to pad his record. Anyways:

1.

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2. George Foreman - Demoted to second due to the controversy.
3. Jorge Valdez - I haven't watched it since it aired, but I remember feeling like Briggs showed me something.
4. Ray Mercer - If in name only.
5. Dicky Ryan - Somebody had to fill in the last spot.

 

Briggs record is terrible. What was an American amateur champion doing, fighting ten guys without a winning record, from his debut? He fought 20 in all.
Briggs;
1-Liakhovich
2-Foreman
3-Mercer
4-Dunno...Sargent?
5-Ryan...
Just about everybody in the contenders thread is better.

 

I watched Lewis-Briggs last night for the first time in years. While Briggs clearly wasn't in Lewis' league, he looked better than I remembered. Yes, his record is terrible. But I got to thinking... did Briggs choose to take the Gerry Cooney low-risk, high-reward route? Build an impressive looking but empty calorie record that impresses casual fans at little risk to his health, then fight an occasional big name for a big payday.

 

Shannon Briggs’ 5 best wins

1 Liakhovich - Good win
2 Foreman - I (as well as most) believe Foreman won this fight
3 Mercer - Well past his best
4 Calloway - Big drop off here
5 Okine - One of the weakest top 5 wins by any of the champions

You could stick in any number of journeymen into the 4 and 5 spots. Briggs probably has the weakest top 5 wins of any lineal champion