October 16 in Germany. Thoughts? Does Briggs really deserve this? Probably not but he couldn't do much worse than the people V.K. has fought since coming back in 2008 (Sosnowski KO10, Johnson W12, Arreola KO10, Gomez KO9, and Peter KO8. Klitschko has barely lost a round in these fights. I see Briggs getting stopped in the mid-late rounds. Briggs is too slow and inactive IMO. A few of the early rounds should be fun though. One thing is for sure... they are both big dudes- Briggs is 6'4" with an 80" reach and weighed 266 Lbs for his last fight, 258 Lbs for the fight before that. Klitschko is 6'7 1/2" with an 80" reach and weighed 247 Lbs for his last two fights.
Haye vs. Harrison will probably be even worse. I see Haye breaking Harrison down and stoppping him late. I hope Haye fights one of the Klitschkos eventually. At least fight Adamek.
Very true. If he declines a bit more I could see somebody like Haye outworking him for a decision win. If he stays around long enough he will lose again, it happens to everybody. As long as he is fighting slow guys or smaller guys with little power he'll be fine. At this point it would still take an exceptional fighter. Is Haye exceptional? IDK yet?
The fight shows that all you need to accomplish in order to get a title shot in today's heavyweight division is a string of KO's over tomato cans. Briggs, throughout his career, has used this formula. His only legit win was over Lyakhovich, a 12th round miracle knockout in the last seconds of a fight he was losing.
Briggs will be beaten up by Vitali and stopped in the mid-late rounds, depending on how soon Briggs gasses.
:good For some reason I think Briggs has a serious chance here, though. If Briggs can bring the heat early....
Vitali has an inability to not turn his back and almost trip over his own two feet while having pressure applied on him. I don't know what it is. Seems to be some kind of Wladimir lite syndrome. He dictates pace but if he's crowded he gets out of there ASAP. He thrives on dictating the pace of fights. Of course that'll be no problem at all with Briggs, taking him out of his element is about as easy as throwing punches. See the Arreola match and the Sander's fight especially. Who knows. Old heavyweight fight are hard to predict, though Vitali is certainly a favorite.
To me it´s a kind of indication what Vitali feels the age and his old injuries and so doesn´t want to take risks anymore but focus on making a bit of cash before retiring. Good for him, bad for boxing.
I´d laugh my ass of if HArrison lands his right on Haye and knocks him out. Not likely but it can happen. Sadly Briggs chances are even smaller. Would be as funny.
I was watching Vitali-Lewis today and noticed this. Lewis struggled in the first two rounds but when Steward urged him to turn it into a fight between the second and third, (and Lewis did) he turned the pace of the fight around and began to dominate. Vitali got so frustrated and was so useless that he literally fell over in a clinch, and Lennox fell on him. Vitali then kicked Lewis in the head as he rose, should of got a point deducted for that The thing is, there's just so few quality pressure fighters at HW nowadays.
Haye's a good fighter, Audley won't land on him. Nobody's landed anything significant on him at heavyweight and Valuev and Ruiz were both top ten fighters. Haye's problem is that he's just more interested in money than fame though. That' sthe problem. He knows that fighting a Klitschko and losing destroys everything.
I do think that Briggs (and Arreola for that matter) have a better chance at beating Wlad than they do at beating Vitali, even though Vitali is clearly going down hill.