George Foreman told an HBO audience after Briggs’ first defeat: “This guy’s still got a future, I do believe. On March 15, 1996, fighting against Darroll Wilson in Atlantic City, HBO showcased the carved-from-stone, 6-foot-4, 225-pound Briggs as the latest destroyer on the rise to the heavyweight title, a fairy tale boxing was desperate to sell.īut Briggs was knocked out in the third round that night by a mere steppingstone of an opponent and instantly became a certified bust. He spent the first three years of his pro career cruising down boxing’s fast lane as an undefeated heavyweight, with 15 of his 20 knockouts coming in the first round. ![]() And, at first, the comparisons seemed apt. Not long after, Briggs was sold to the public as Tyson’s successor. What was left of Tyson showed up 19 months later and was knocked out by Buster Douglas in one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Over the summer of 1988, while Briggs, a homeless 17-year-old, was trying on his first pair of boxing gloves, a neighborhood bully named Mike Tyson sold 91 seconds of his act in Atlantic City against Michael Spinks for $21 million. To answer that question, we need to go back almost three decades. How can that possibly be? How can Briggs still stand? And how can we still stand him? The Next Tyson The soundtrack for these posts is Briggs repeatedly and loudly bellowing what have become the most ubiquitous trademarked words in boxing history after Michael Buffer’s “Let’s get ready to rumble!”:īriggs (60-6-1) has ridden this slogan into not only a considerable fan base, but now, by order of the World Boxing Association, a heavyweight title shot against Australian Lucas Browne by the end of the year (although reports of Browne failing a drug test may complicate that timetable). ![]() Briggs is a one-man publicity-industrial complex, securing more than 50 million views on social media with a brilliantly devious campaign of online videos ambushing and relentlessly badgering Wladimir Klitschko and other heavyweight champions for a title shot. Now 45 and a quarter-century after his professional debut, he’s in the midst of another reinvention, trying to become boxing’s shrewdest promoter. Illustration by Diego PatiñoNobody in the history of boxing has worn as many hats as Shannon Briggs – prodigy, bust, coward, journeyman, champion, fraud, comeback kid, clown, huckster, lunatic.
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