Shannon Briggs Targets Davd Haye
Shannon Briggs Targets David Haye
The former world champion and one-time challenger of Lennox Lewis says he is willing to travel to Europe to take on the WBA heavyweight champion.
The 38-year-old, best known for being floored three times in five rounds as Lewis battered him out of world-title contention back in 1998, threw his hat into the ring in an open letter to Haye a week after WBO and IBF champion Wladimir Klitschko issued an online video calling him out.
Briggs branded both Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko “boring” and says they only want to fight the Londoner because he is much smaller.
He said in a statement: “David, I’ve been in this game a long time. Before you waste a lot of your precious time on them, please just realize that you don’t have to be at the mercy of the Klitschkos.
“I’ve already gone down that road and been tortured by the games they play. You give them every advantage they want and they just keep backing out.
“Don’t waste your time. You are a proven and legitimate heavyweight champion now. You beat Nikolai Valuev and now John Ruiz.
“Let’s you and me have a real, action-packed heavyweight title fight. I’d love to go Europe and fight you.”
Briggs has only been stopped twice in 56 fights and held the WBO belt for seven months, wrestling it from Sergei Lyakhovich in November 2006 before surrendering it to Sultan Ibragimov in June the following year.
He is not ranked in the top 10 by any of the four organisations but does boast a devastating knockout record that has seen him finish off 43 of his 49 victims inside the distance.
And that, says the man who calls himself ‘The Cannon’, is more than anything the either Klitschko can bring to the table.
“The heavyweight division is for punching power and all-out wars,” he said. “People want to see Lennox Lewis and George Foreman type power. They don’t want to see the Klitschkos do their punch and clinch, run-around-and-dance, octopus fighting that they do.
“They hurt the division with their safety-first styles. Neither one of them put it on the line. The fans want to see knockouts.
“We don’t have to deal with the Klitschkos hand-picking opponents and fighting only in Germany with their boring styles.
“Let’s you and me go to war and give the fans what they want from heavyweight boxing. I look forward to hearing from you.”
