Appreciating alphabet champions: Shannon Briggs - lets go champ

Briggs in his prime was his era's version of Cleveland Williams: a guy with great power and very fast hands, but who never lived up to his potential and lacked a truly great win -- and no, a highly questionable win against an ancient Foreman doesn't count -- on his record.

 

Good comparison with Williams. I remember when I first saw Briggs when he was a young fighter. He had incredible handspeed and looked like a guy that was going to make serious noise in the division but then he got iced in three by Darrol Wilson in a showcase fight on HBO and was never the same. After the loss to Lewis he turned into a muscle bound plodded who threw one punch at a time.

One other weird thing about him was his biggest wins were awful performances. As you mentioned, he really should have lost to Foreman and his other big win was against Liakhovich in what was one of the worst heavyweight title matches I have ever seen in my lifetime.

 

Briggs was fun because he was dangerous with his power and speed, but lacked the ring IQ and boxing ability to truly make it count. He could annihilate low level opposition but struggled to really make an impact in the elite rankings.

But you can never call Briggs a quitter or a chump, he took his beatings against Lewis and Vitali like a man. Maybe he could've done better with the right trainer/management, but he would always try to give people their money's worth.

 

Briggs vs prime Foreman would be good

 

Dude had a ginormous head. Like a gourd the size of a county fair prize-winning watermelon.

 

One of those guys that slaughters the C and B grade fighters. Different results when moving up to the A grade guys.

Never thought for a minute his association and development with Atlas was going to work. 20 years from now there will probably be a lot more love for the guy because people will lokk at his record with all those early ko's and jump to conclusions.

 

What's with all the past tense verbiage? Lad's fighting four months hence.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/quinton-ramone-jackson-vs-shannon-demont-briggs.716291/

 

Did you see Jackson and Wanderlei talking about a 5th fight as well?

 

Briggs was the lineal HW champ.

 

You beat me to it. He was not just an Alphabet Champion; he was THE Lineal Heavyweight Champion.

 

Are you trying to make Boxing historians weep?

 

Undeserved. Because he clearly lost to 49 y.o. George Foreman and Foreman should have lost lineal title years ago when judges blatantly robbed Axel Schulz