{"id":304094,"date":"2025-11-24T16:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T16:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/304094\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T16:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T16:39:07","slug":"shannon-briggs-faced-some-of-boxings-biggest-punchers-but-says-one-heavyweight-hit-harder-than-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/304094\/","title":{"rendered":"Shannon Briggs faced some of boxing’s biggest punchers but says one heavyweight hit harder than all"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shannon Briggs counts three former world heavyweight champions among the hardest hitters he ever faced. But the heaviest punch he ever absorbed, he says, came from a man who never held one of boxing\u2019s four major titles.<\/p>\n

Briggs last boxed on May 21, 2016<\/a>. A first-round knockout of Emilio Ezequiel Zarate in London closed out a 24-year career spanning 68 fights, four world title challenges and one championship triumph \u2014 his dramatic last-round win over Siarhei Liakhovich for the WBO title in November 2006.<\/p>\n

Speaking on The God Pod with Lord Jamar<\/a>, the American reflected on some of the biggest punchers he encountered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fought five former heavyweight champions, and three of them was some of the hardest hitters in boxing history: Lennox Lewis, Vitali Klitschko and George Foreman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Briggs\u2019 controversial win over Foreman<\/a> was followed by a spirited effort against Lewis, whom he hurt early before the Brit took command and retained his WBC belt with a fifth-round stoppage.<\/p>\n

Twelve years later Briggs somehow earned another title shot, this time against Vitali Klitschko, and claimed a moral victory by going the distance with the formidable Ukrainian.<\/p>\n

But between those marquee nights came a trip to Atlantic City in August 1999, when Briggs met a South African heavyweight he now calls the hardest puncher he ever faced \u2014 Frans Botha.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrans Botha. He hit me harder than any man in my life. It was something about those punches from Botha. He broke my ribs, I ain\u2019t gonna lie. In the third round he threw a jab and a right hand and broke my ribs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Briggs and Botha fought to a draw, but the Brooklyn heavyweight admitted that \u201cThe White Buffalo\u201d could easily have received the nod.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shannon Briggs counts three former world heavyweight champions among the hardest hitters he ever faced. But the heaviest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-304094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}