HAYE WILL GIVE BRIGGS HIS WISH
Shannon Briggs will complete his return journey from the brink of suicide to heavyweight title contender by fighting David haye this september.
shannon the loose cannon talked about how close he came to killing himself after sealing the haye deal with an instant knockout of his own on the Londoner’s undercard on saturday. The ageing american then went walkabout, still barechested, among late-night revellers in the bars of the o2 arena.
as he had done all evening, he kept roaring: ‘Let’s go, champ.’
haye, having stopped the second of his own comeback opponents inside two rounds, will oblige the eccentric Briggs in his next outing along the road to what he hopes will be a world title shot.
Both these veterans are targeting anthony Joshua, Britain’s reigning olympic and iBF world champion.
The Briggs resurrection, at 44, is the more surprising since haye, 35, only took time out to recover from a shoulder injury. The grey-bearded new Yorker, who now lives near haye in south London and sports the flag of st george as well as the star-spangled Banner on his shorts, stepped back from his first-round flattening of argentinian cannon fodder Emilio Zarate to reflect on his troubled life.
‘i was an only child who became a homeless kid,’ he recalled. ‘ after i won and then lost my world title i ended up with no money. Then my dad died in prison. i just sat around eating Krispy Kreme donuts. i became very depressed. i contemplated suicide.
‘My weight blew up to 400lb (28st) and i couldn’t bend down to tie my own shoelaces. But a great friend kept telling me to start training and make a comeback. That was four years ago. now i’m heading for a big payday to help feed my kids, looking forward to knocking out haye and getting another title shot.’
haye, having stopped the littleknown Kosovan arnold gjergjaj inside two mismatched rounds, expects to be the one inflicting the Ko but Briggs said: ‘i respect haye as a man and for being a former two-weight world champion. But not as a boxer. he looks like the old haye to me. To be honest, as a fighter, he sucks.’
not that he is ungrateful to haye for hoisting him back into the rankings. The jostling in the ring after their wins ‘was just me doing what i do to hype the next fight’. Briggs has constantly harassed Wladimir Klitschko, Joshua and now haye, who said: ‘When he was stalking Wlad and Josh i thought he was funny. When he started stalking me i didn’t think it so funny. he turned up on my uncle’s doorstep in south London shouting, “Let’s go, champ”. My uncle told him, “David’s not here, mate’’.
‘But he has caught a lot of the public’s imagination and now he and Joshua are the two heavyweights the fans want me to fight. Joshua and the other world champions like Tyson Fury are busy right now, so let’s go, chump. Then hopefully we can move on to the big British world title fight next year.’
The antics of Briggs make that agenda feasible. haye has done a remarkable job in virtually selling out the o2 for his haye Days i and ii, despite the anonymity of the opponents. With his celebrity glitz, loud music and quick Kos he has drawn a young crowd of new fans to boxing, which can only be good for the sport. But that can only last for so long without a hard fight. Briggs showed enough on saturday to persuade the customers that he will be tough enough for them to spend their money on another fun night out at the o2. Briggs, who looked in shape and sharp at 17st 12lb, promises to shed ‘another 10 to 15 pounds’ come september. haye is having to juggle his own weight against his advancing years, without detriment to his exceptional speed. at 16st he was three pounds lighter than for his January swatting of Mark de Mori but still heftier than before his lay-off. he says: ‘i kept being told about how the body thickens in your 30s. i thought “no, not me”, but sadly it’s true. i probably need to trim off a little more weight from fight to fight now.’ The proof of the pudding will come with a world title fight, be it against Joshua or america’s WBC champion Deontay Wilder. The latter fight could come as early as December but Joshua will not be tempted by the paucity of haye’s most recent fall guys into rushing into the ring against him. The hayemaker is still a danger in the heavyweight division.