42-year-old former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (56-6-1, 49 KOs) obliterated a badly over-matched Cory Phelps (16-7-1, 8 KOs) by a 1st round knockout last Saturday night in Winston-Salem North Carolina. Briggs, 6’4”, knocked Phelps down three times in the round.
The fight was halted after the third knockdown. The knockout came from a hard body shot that leveled Phelps. The fight was then halted after a hurt looking Phelps was able to peel himself up off the canvas to get back to a standing position.
It’s a good thing the referee stopped it because Phelps would have been knocked down immediately had it continued.
In winning the fight, Briggs captured the interim WBC Latino heavyweight title. He also keeps his NABA heavyweight belt. The win for Briggs was his 5th straight since he started his comeback earlier this year.
Briggs wants to get a world title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko. However, the approach that Briggs is taking to get a title shot by facing 3rd tier opposition rather than 1st tier fighters means it might take Briggs a long time before he gets ranked at No.1, if he ever does.
Briggs used this same approach to getting title shots in the past against Sergey Liakovich in 2007 and Vitali Klitschko in 2010. It takes a long time to get a title shot when Briggs uses this approach rather than the approach that we’re seeing with Alexander Povetkin, who recently defeated #7 WBC Manuel Charr, and is now scheduled to fight Carlos Takam.
Briggs may eventually get a crack at title if one of the sanctioning bodies pushes himself up to the No.1 spot, but the chances are he’s going to need to fight an elimination bout to become a mandatory challenger for Wladimir, and that’s where Briggs will likely have problems.
