Paul Briggs Moves On To Antonio Tarver!

17.08.04 – On a cold Sunday night with the Olympics on TV, a crowd of over 2000 turned up to see Paul ‘Hurricane’ Briggs win a unanimous twelve round decision over Stipe ‘Spiderman’ Drews at the State Sports Centre in Homebush, Sydney, a fight designed to determine Antonio Tarver’s WBC mandatory. Going in, Briggs was rated #2, Drews #3.The twelve rounder got off to a quiet start and at the end of five rounds the 6’5 southpaw held the upper hand as he boxed from the outside, used his reach and turned Briggs around.

In the fifth particular, Drews did a great job and the gaps in Briggs’ defence looked to be opening up as he tried to put pressure on his awkward and clever foe. With a feeling through the stadium that the Australian was running out of rounds the fight turned completely in round six when Briggs landed a crisp left hook as the Universum promoted Croatian Drews looked to back out of a clinch. Stipe went down solidly and was down again soon after as Briggs let loose.

Drews looked like a deer caught in the headlights as Paul attacked and went into survival mode leaping in, pulling Briggs’ head down and brought up a knee to the groin, buying some valuable time. In round seven Drews was on the floor again and it looked like he was about to be stopped. He at times changed to orthodox in a look of uncertainty. Word pre fight was the former Olympian would not handle the pressure once Briggs established himself inside and that was the case, when Briggs nailed him with power, eigther to head or body he had no idea and resorted to illegal tactics such as knees to the groin, headlocks and headbutts. While he was deducted three points, there were other fouls that went un penalised and the fight threatened to turn into a farce. Going the distance and having a dig in the final round as Briggs waved him in, Drews was fortunate not to have been DQ’d and to his credit Briggs, former world Muay Thai champ kept his composure and stuck to fighting cleanly. The official scores were 117-105, 115-109, 113-109. Eastside had it 115-107. Ref Texan Lawrence Cole. This fight, his first under new trainer Jack Mosley (who rated his fighters performance “like a nine” out of ten), was probably the best thing for Paul prior to his shot at Tarver. It was easy to see how Drews had beaten Silvio Branco as a last minute sub and promoters d-Rush did the Briggs camp a great service by securing the rights to stage the fight in Australia.

Hopefully the New Zealand born, US based Gold Coaster won’t have to fight any more eliminators-this was his third having beaten Jorge Castro and Jesus Ruiz. Before the fight there was a terrific atmosphere with a few hundred of Sydney’s Croatian
community turning up to vocally support their countryman.

This is a fight. We are not playing lawn bowls in here” said the winner when asked about Drews’ tactics. Briggs added he will spend a week on the Gold Coast before flying back to camp in California. “There’s still a lot of work to do. I just have a message for Antonio Tarver. I’m coming to get your world title. It will be a very competitive fight. A lot of people have written me off before and I have kept proving them wrong. I have to congratulate d-Rush as everyone said they couldn’t compete with the purse bids”

Paul turned 29 on Friday and celebrated it two days later “with a twelve round party”.

In the main support Lovemore Ndou gave Ruben Diaz a steady pasting for five rounds with the visitor from Uraguay retiring before the sixth in an IBF Pan Pac 140 lb title fight.

Anton Solopov from the Kostya Tszyu Academy stopped a disinterested Harmen Adjadato in the first round at middleweight. The Indonesian had put in strong efforts v Shannan Taylor and Nader Hamdan in the past and on paper figured to be a decent test for the classy southpaw Solopov.

Sakio Bika outpointed tough Samoan Rico Chong Nee over six rounds at middle, Billy Dib stopped Nagin Gurama in the final round of a lightweight four, Universum’s Khoren Gevorgyan stopped Ian Mcleod who retired with a broken hand after five at middleweight and heavyweight Mark de Mori stopped newcomer Steven Kilarski in two.