42-year-old former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (55-6-1, 48 KOs) will be continuing his trek to win another heavyweight title when he gets in the ring with cruiserweight Cory Phelps (16-6-1, 8 KOs) this Saturday night in a scheduled 10 round bout at the Ring of Dreams Boxing Gym, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.
Phelps is someone that is made to order Briggs, because he’s been knocked out several times in the past early in fights against the likes of Don George, Tommy Karpency and Alexander Frenkel. Karpency isn’t a known puncher, but he was still able to KO Phelps in the 2nd round.
Briggs got a world title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in 2010 by facing opposition similar to the talent that has, and it looks like Briggs is using the same method to try and get another crack at a world title. In other words, Briggs is facing 3rd tier opposition one after another in hopes that he’ll get pushed up the rankings to get a title shot. But in this case I don’t think it’s going to work unless he beats a top level fighter to become the mandatory challenger for IBF/IBO/WBO/WBA heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
Briggs is not going to get a voluntary shot at the title, because Wladimir’s going to likely ignore Briggs until he becomes his mandatory challenger, which isn’t too likely. If Briggs continues to fight poor opposition he’ll likely wind up with nothing to show for it unless someone beats Wladimir in the future. In that case, Briggs might get picked out for a world title shot without him having to work his way into a mandatory spot.
Briggs has won his last four fights since staging his comeback in April of this year. In his last fight, he defeated Raphael Zumbano Love by a 12 round decision. Briggs also has recent wins over Matthew Greer, Francisco Mireles and Maurenzo Smith.
Ideally, Briggs wants a title shot against Wladimir because he feels he matches up well against him. He thinks he’ll knock him out and then bring his heavyweight titles back to the United States with him.