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April 2002
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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BRIGGS BACK FOR MORE He's been termed a part-timer raised on stiffs, but the colourful New York Heavyweight returns to the spotlight when he meets in-form Jameel McCline.FIONA MANNING reports on the new Shannon |
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GETTING the better of GOOFi was McCline's latest impressive result
- Get Big Pic The jury is still most certainly out on Shannon Briggs, the heavyweight who
grew up in the same neck of the woods as Mike Tyson, but who fights as if he is
afraid of wrecking his manicure. The once well-regarded and feared heavyweight contender has made more
comebacks than Francis Albert. Any reason why we should believe him this time? “Yeah, everybody deserves a fifth chance,” promoter Lou Di Bella said
sarcastically at the news of Briggs’s 27 April bout with contender Jameel
McCline. Appositely billed “New York, New York”, this fight pits Briggs against
one NYC native that he believes will lead him to the one he really wants: Mike
Tyson. Both were products of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Briggs says Tyson
is his inspiration and was always his goal as a boxer. But few are those who can quite take Briggs’s words at face value. Each time Briggs tells us there is a new and improved version of him about to
step up to the plate, it doesn’t happen. This is, after all, the same man whom
world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis refers to as “Sharon”. At the Madison Square Garden press conference (the fight is scheduled to be
held there in the 5,000-seat theatre), Briggs’s demeanour betrayed his
disaffection — he looked more appropriately attired for a day at the beach. “That’s Shannon’s reaction to the lack of interest in this promotion,”
said Briggs’s manager, New York-based criminal defence attorney Michael Marley,
who has always remained an ardent supporter. Marley made many jokes during the unusually jovial proceedings between
McCline and Briggs. The pair are friends from way back, so, refreshingly, there
was no crotch-grabbing, no biting of ears or thighs, no unzipping of flies. “Look at Jameel,” said Marley, putting his arm around the nattily attired
McCline, who showed up in a business suit. “He’s like something out of GQ
[magazine]. But, you know what, when he wakes up in hospital after Shannon
knocks him out, these fabulous clothes are going to be out of fashion!” These two are quite a duo once you get them going. Should boxing fail to
bring Marley and Briggs that elusive pot of gold, they can always try stand-up
comedy. Behind the jocularity, however, Briggs still has to prove himself after
fighting a string of what Marley derisively refers to as “tomato cans”. “Look, I worked with him as an amateur and I was thrilled when he sought me
out a couple of years ago,” said Marley, who accepts full responsibility for
the aforementioned tomato cans. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
when you’re rebuilding a fighter. “Shannon showed me he was serious. He has had four first-round knockouts in
a row — against guys I could beat — but we’re ready to step up the level
of competition. I know I’m gonna take him to a world championship.” Though Briggs, who is 36-3-1 (with 25 stoppages), was ridiculed for taking on
Reynaldo Minus — “he’s a plus for any opponent,” quipped Marley —
Briggs is quick to point out that another once-touted contender, Michael Grant,
is about to add Minus to his resume. “Is anyone joking about Grant fighting him?” mused Briggs. After looking good for four rounds in his world-title collision with Lennox
Lewis before getting knocked out in the fifth, Briggs has seen his star rapidly
fall to earth. Sure, he came up on the raw end of the deal in a decision “victory” over
George Foreman, but he was also given what many saw as a gift draw in his bout
with South Africa Frans Botha. Briggs surprised everybody when he lost an eight-rounder to journeyman
Sedreck Fields. And, from that point on, Briggs was AWOL. Where did he go? And does he have what it takes to put him back where he and
Marley believe he is meant to be? “I hate [it] when people bring up Sedreck,” moaned Briggs on the phone
from his new home in south Florida. “The Fields fight was just a bad day at the office,” is Marley’s
version of events. On the eve of heading to his training camp in Miami or the Bahamas, Briggs
said he took time off boxing to regroup and decide if he really wanted to keep
getting beaten up for a living. “I had to change my lifestyle,” said the rap and hip-hop music fanatic
who left New York and moved into a home of his own in Florida, alone for the
first time in his life. “Yeah, I was putting the TV on for company, just to hear human voices,”
said Briggs, who also filled the silence by recording his own music, which he
downloaded to internet sites. “It’s funny — once you are no longer the big contender, people you
thought were friends disappear. They just vanish. I had to take a long hard look
at what I considered to be important and two things are: my son Chan and boxing.” Chan, who was named after Briggs’s hero, action-movie star Jackie Chan, is
a constant reminder of why Briggs chose boxing in the first place. Like Jackie Chan, Shannon Briggs had a fairly disastrous early life. Briggs
was homeless and living on the streets for a while. When he met Jackie Chan on a
radio show, the two found much in common. In many ways, Chan’s success as an actor and as a man has provided Briggs
with positive reinforcement. “Girls were my other problem,” he said as he confessed to having fought
one fight while fixating on a woman in the front row. “I kept positioning myself in the ring so I could look at her, but she was
married. She refused to go out with me.” Separated from Chan’s mother, Briggs has frequent visits in Florida from
his son. He insists the hordes of hangers-on are a thing of the past. “I like my privacy,” he said. “I like my time alone now. One of the
first things Chan said to me when he came here was ‘Daddy, it’s so quiet.’” Briggs also says he has conquered his asthma, a condition that he claims
affected many of his big fights. “I outgrew it,” he says. “But I also had to change my diet and stick to
a very strict exercise regime.” He began running every day in Florida, building up his stamina. “My conditioning was always my problems,” he said. “I would just run
out of gas.” Briggs doesn’t see too many problems getting past McCline, who has
impressive victories over the aforementioned Grant and GOOFi (née Lance “Mount”
Whitaker) to his credit. He is so confident of beating McCline that he is looking beyond the fight and
onto Wladimir Klitschko. Briggs remains so unimpressed by the German-based fighter that he said: “If
Klitschko beats me, I will cut off my dreadlocks! I haven’t combed my hair in
12 years. It’ll be painful, so, believe me, I don’t want to cut them off. “I respect Klitschko’s Ph.D. more than his boxing. I have respect for
both Klitschko brothers as contenders, but neither has been tested. I’ll fight
anybody named Klitschko.” Briggs said he believed Klitschko would easily beat Botha, but wouldn’t
mind a rematch himself with the South African. “That’s another man people keep waving in my face. I felt it was a good
fight. I felt I did enough to win it. “Frankly, of the two brothers, Wlad is definitely better, but, if the money’s
the same, I’ll fight the brother. Hey, is there another brother or a cousin? I’ll
take any of ‘em. Tell Dr. Klitschko to come to New York. The sauerkraut’s on
me. “I think there are still big questions about Klitschko. The loss to Ross
Puritty for one. As a boxer, Puritty is a much better football player. I’ll
fight any of the big guns right now: after McCline, I’d love [Fres] Oquendo,
Tyson, anybody. But I know the Klitschkos are looking for credibility, so they
can look no further than me.” Briggs bristles at the suggestion he ducked a rematch with Fields or that he
is difficult to deal with. “My promoter Cedric Kushner kept promising fights that didn’t happen but
that’s boxing,” he said. “The fight with Sedreck was never announced. The
fight was never signed. “There was talk of it. The money was terrible. It made no sense at the time
financially. Hopefully, I’m back in the mix now and a win over Jameel will
make people realise I am not done as a fighter. I am just beginning.” The names — Eric Curry, Russell Chasteen, Jason Waller, Minus — aren’t
up to much, but Briggs pointed out that, while McCline took eight rounds to get
a decision over Minus, Briggs battered him to a standstill in one round. Both McCline and Briggs see this match as an all-important crossroads. At the
New York press conference, McCline recalled how the pair shared a dressing room
on a fight card in 1996. “It’s really weird how things come full circle. Here we are, six, seven
years later, and I’m fighting someone I’ve been watching from afar, admiring
from afar, for many years now.” “I like this guy,” retorted Briggs. “This guy’s a really great guy. I
met him a long time ago, a nice guy. We have some common friends. They all speak
highly of him. I’ve seen him fight. Very good fighter. Very talented. “But I am better. I am faster, smarter and I am stronger. I am a much more
mature fighter. I will knock him out. Guaranteed.” |
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