Shannon Briggs: career analysis

I think everyone knows he was a superb crusher of anyone not world-class. When he stopped the lower tier guys they were very often removed from the waking realm.
But he was vulnerable and later in his career he was huge and couldn't put any serious work together but he only needed one shot. The Liakhovich win was Briggs in a nutshell did nothing for round after round at that point in his career. Landed a huge shot and closed the fight out. Had a decent career and was a threat to the top guys but other than the Foreman win could never get over the finish line.
A big punching glass cannon is always fun except when he's too stupid to call it a day like Vs Vitali.

 

Fun to watch in his prime. I like guys like Briggs and hope there are more of them; you don't have to be great to be worth watching.

The fight against Lewis is a perfect example. It was a violent fight with Briggs giving as good as he got early on, then of course Lennox took over and got the KO. But that was a fun night of boxing. I'd much rather watching fringe bangers like Briggs than safety first technicians who find a way to lose UDs.

Later Briggs was boring because he had no gas tank. He's also lucky to be a functioning human after the licking Vitali put on him.

 

Briggs had 8 fights against HW title contenders out of 68 and went 3-4-1. He could have easily been 1-7 but the only one to stop him from this group was a prime Lennox Lewis he gave a little scare to. While Vitali beat him pretty badly Briggs is actually Vitalis best win.

Briggs also won the USBA and the NABO belt over Chris Koval and Dicky Ryan. Thats 2 of North Americas 3 main regional belts. When you add that to his lineal title, being a 2x world champ and all his knockout accolades he has a fine legacy. Hes his generations Earnie Shavers.

 

I peed myself a little.

 

I thought he looked pretty good against Lewis tbh. It made me think his record was a bit better than it is but on closer inspection there's really very little there.

 

This is something I ponder quite often. All we have to go on is a fighters record, but many fighters are so much more than their record suggests.

 

Huge first round knockout score.
He unfairly became the Lineal HW champion, boxing against Foreman on the back foot.
Foreman deserved at least a draw, or according to some a win.
The lineal HW title was his "stepping stone".
That immediately collapsed in the next fight against Lennox Lewis.
Shannon Briggs has a score...
Briggs 60 wins 6 losses
Holmes 69 wins 6 losses
Ali 56 wins 5 losses
... but Briggs is not ATG HW (with a win against Foreman, and with a loss against Foreman he would be ranked even lower).

 

Briggs is not among Vitali's top wins, he was unranked and probably not in the top 10 guys Vitali beat.

He ko'd exactly one top ten heavyweight in his entire career. Pretty thin credentials for a supposed knockout puncher.

 

Let's go Champ!

 

Name 10 better. Sanders and Peter? Thats 2.

 

Off the top of my head
Juan Carlos Gomez
Chris Arreola
Kevin Johnson
Samuel Peter
Tomasz Adamek
Derek Chisora
Corrie Sanders
Larry Donald

That's 8 guys. Given Briggs was old and past his prime I'd say there's a good chance that Hide and Bean were also better than the version Vitali faced

 

Sanders and Peter have a case. The rest you're really stretching.