| Sultan Ibragimov outclasses Shannon Briggs
By Geoffrey Ciani
When WBO heavyweight Shannon Briggs attacked Sultan Ibragimov in the first round of their scheduled twelve-rounder, I suspected we’d see a very competitive fight. In fact, it appeared as if this one might resemble Briggs’s prior bout when he captured the WBO title from former champion, Sergei Liakhovich. My suspicions, however, proved to be incorrect. We did not get a competitive fight and the bout looked nothing like the contest between Briggs and Liakhovich.
After winning the first round, everything else went downhill for Shannon Briggs. He did not have the aggressiveness, the accuracy, or the stamina to compete with the younger and hungrier Ibragimov. Briggs was thoroughly outclassed in every imaginable facet.
The only similarity between this fight and Briggs’s last with Liakhovich was the constant: Shannon Briggs, himself. At this stage in his career, Briggs tires very easily and very early. To make up for his gross lack of conditioning, he relies on picking his spots where he can best utilize his speed, power, and accuracy. Against Liakhovich, this strategy enabled him to remain competitive by unleashing carefully measured counter shots at semi-regular intervals; against Ibragimov, it failed miserably, because he was never able to regularly counter due to the pace set by Ibragimov..
Ibragimov exhibited good skills, a nice punching variety, good stamina, a good chin, and the ability to stick with a game plan. He was able to remain active enough throughout to prevent Briggs from getting into a groove—this is something Liakhovich failed to do. Had Liakhovich been more active, he may have shared similar success against Briggs. Instead, he fought at an anemic pace which enabled Briggs to survive and do what he does best—pick his spots without over-exerting himself.
He had no such luxury against Ibragimov, who had no intentions of allowing Briggs the chance to catch his breath. He was just active enough to score, get out of harm’s way, and score again, without allowing Briggs any time for recuperation. It was a brilliant plan that was executed to near perfection. In the end, I scored the bout 119-109 for Ibragimov—it was a very easy fight to score. How two of the judges had the audacity to give Briggs any more than a single round is well beyond the scope of reason.
I concede to not having seen a whole lot of Ibragimov before this bout, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Over all, I was impressed. He reminded me an awful lot of Ruslan Chagaev. Yes, the obvious reasons are that both reside from the former Soviet bloc, and both are southpaws who are approximately the same height and weight with Chagaev being a few years younger. I liked the way both Ibragimov and Chagaev were able to work their way in, land a few shots, and get out of harm’s way before the counters had a chance to do any damage. Chagaev did this very well against Valuev, but looked less impressive doing so than Ibrigamov did against Briggs (most likely because Valuev was a superior champion who was much more active).
It will be interesting to see how things unfold in the next few months. The heavyweight division is once again showing signs of life. Let’s hope it continues in this direction and that the best continue squaring off against one another so we can have a true standard by which to measure this current crop of heavyweight contenders.
Sultain Ibragimov Beats Shannon Briggs to the punch and removes a serious obstruction in the WBO pipeline
By Wray Edwards
Whenever the WBO or WBC gets bogged down with a boxer who is more of an obstruction than an attraction, it needs to find a good plumber to ream out the pipes and get the excitement flowing again. For the recent past, a sickly and over-bulked fighter has blunted the point of the spear which the heavyweight champion represents for each sanction. Though potentially a powerful puncher, which breeds caution in his opponents, Shannon Briggs' only chance to prevail against Sultan would have come from a smaller ring, better footwork and superior hand-speed. These attributes were not available to him…so he lost.
Sultan, on the other hand, had listened to Jeff Mayweather and did as he was trained to do. When ESB spoke with Jeff the night before the fight, the plan was to stick and move, not cross the feet, and stay cool and focused when getting hit from time-to-time. There's noting wrong with being cautious when messing around in front of Shannon Briggs. Sultan showed adamantine dedication to his fight plan. Throughout the fight Sultan worked behind feints and jabs to deliver a mix of body shots and head shots at a ratio of about two to one respectively. I can now disclose some of the things I was told off the record until after the fight.
Everything Ibragimov did in the ring was foretold the night before…not that Briggs would have been able to do anything about it, but sometimes it's good to keep the playbook in a safe place. Also there was a great deal riding on this one for a lot of people. ESB was told that Sultan would retire if he lost this one. I was surprised by that. He is young by Heavyweight standards, but only he knows what's best for his future.
Sultan only got hit really solidly one time. That was a straight right as he fell to the ropes.
As Shannon's right cannon fired on target for about the only time last night, the shot went right down the pipe between Sultan's guards and caused an explosion of sweat to burst from Ibragimov's head. This was a way more powerful punch than the one which put Sultan on his knees in front of Ray Austin. The net effect…Sultan countered immediately and walked right through the hit.
Throughout the bout Ibragimov was able to beat Shannon to the punch at will about sixty percent of the time. I haven't seen the punch stats, but sixty percent feels about right. As for Briggs…his counters and leads were often thrown with amateurish form, and often led to punishment if, on occasion, they grazed or connected. During the fight, Briggs' trainer threw more demonstration punches than Shannon threw real attempts between the bells.
The crowd booed several times as both boxers were understandably cautious after feeling each other's power. Sultan was obviously trying to take Shannon deep into the rounds banking on gassing him out and then going in for the kill. Briggs, however, metered out his efforts more judiciously than he had with Serguei Lyakhovich and so, was able to hang with Sultan for the distance.
For his relative size, Sultan might as well have garnered his style for this one from Floyd Mayweather. He did stick and move. Unlike Oscar, Briggs was unable to chase Sultan around the ring to deliver, even if he did have an Oscar-like bag of highschoolish flurries and cuffie-bangs. As it went, Shannon had to settle for plodding around in right-hand circles to try and keep Sultan in his sights.
In the end, Ibragimov so out-pointed Briggs that The Cannon needed a KO to win and he wasn't nearly fast enough and, IMO, powerful enough (remember that big right) to do it.
The press conference got under way about 1:am and started off with Shannon seated first. Briefly here is what he had to say…in paraphrase: He said he was still sick with asthma and pneumonia relapse, but decided to go ahead because he was being "threatened with lawsuits, suspension from Boxing and being blackballed by the TV networks." Besides, he stated that he had to think about his family and what the 1.8 million Warriors bid would mean to them.
He said that "the kid", as he referred to Sultan, never hurt him and did not really take the belt away as he should have. He said that he thought he did enough to get the D. There was a "D" alright, but it was "D" for denial in this event. Shannon and his people (Don King was there, but evaporated after Briggs' loss) ruminated about a return to Boxing, but the prospects for that are slim to none.
It is not seemly for a sportsman who has been so obviously out-pointed to whine and complain in the manner he did. Hopefully, he will find another vocation. This career seems virtually at an end.
Then the happy campers came to the press room. Sultan, Jeff, Sampson, Boris and Leon all celebrated Ibragimov's victory. Though it wasn't pretty, one is hard-pressed to think of a better and more correct (from a professional boxing standpoint) approach than the one Sultan was trained to take. To his credit, Sultan is always evaluating his performance and shows frustration when he is unable to display his optimum talents. One must admit that facing the big guy is dicey at best. He likes to KO the other guy and is pretty hard on himself when he doesn't
The following was published by Briggs' camp in February:
Shannon Briggs responds to Sultan Ibragimov
23.02.07 - First of all I know Sultan didn't even say those things. He's not much of a talker and he's a classy guy. I guess his twin promoters Leon and Sampson, known in the boxing world as Dumb and Dumber, are trying to stir up some hype. That's the job of the promoters so I understand.
I guess Leon and Sampson put that one to rest. It's the old saying one must remember: "It is always best to keep one's words palatable, for it might be necessary to eat them one day."
Ibragimov will probably take a challenger or two before attempting a unification match with one of the other champions. Then one would consider a proper course through those waters. WBC's Oleg Maskaev might be a good start, then the WBA's Ruslan Chagaev as a way of working up to very conservative thoughts about the IBF's Wlad the destroyer. Ibragimov is a gentleman sportsman and will be a credit to his championship.
The undercard had some very entertaining contests which resulted in some pretty good photos. Maybe Admin will put them up in a day or two.
ESB would like to thank Ed Keenan, Cima Georgevich, and everybody at Redline Media, Golden Grain and Warriors Boxing for their generous efforts to make way for our coverage. See you at the fights.
Ibragimov decisions Briggs!
 Heavyweight Sultan Ibragimov (21-0-1, 17 KOs) easily defeated Shannon Briggs (48-5-1, 42 KOs), the WBO heavyweight champion, winning by 12-round unanimous decision tonight to capture the WBO heavyweight title at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Briggs, 35, did very little in the bout and appeared to be conserving his strength for the later rounds. Ibragimov, 32, capitalized on Briggs' reluctance to mix it up by winning round after round, powered behind hard left hands shots, and blistering jabs.
Ibragimov hurt Briggs in the ninth, landing a number of unanswered blows. However, Briggs made it through the end of the round, though he already looked battered and defeated as he went to his corner. In the 12th round, Briggs momentarily attempted to mount an attack, feebly trying a few badly telegraphed right hands, but they were thrown poorly with terrible form and missed badly.
The final judges' scores were 119-109, 117-111, and 115-113. Unlike in his last bout with Sergei Liakhovich, where Briggs looked muscular and defined, he appeared to have more fat on his frame, looking smooth. He also appeared to have visibly aged since his last bout, seeming several years older
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