Perhaps it wasn?t brain damage, as diagnosed by Dr. Steelhammer, which has caused Shannon Briggs to act as he does?
Those who have followed Shannon Briggs from the mean streets of Brooklyn to whatever planet he now inhabits are not surprised that he failed a drug test in advance of his June 3 fight at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, against Fres Oquendo for the vacant WBA World heavyweight title.
According to ESPN, 45-year-old Briggs, in accord with the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA), recently failed a random urine test, throwing his inexplicable title fight against 44-year-old Oquendo into jeopardy. Elevated levels of testosterone were found in his system, so perhaps it wasn?t brain damage, as diagnosed by Dr. Steelhammer, after all which has caused Briggs to act as he does.
Briggs (60-6-1, 53 KOs, 1 NC), who has a big personality and muscles to match, has been on the comeback trail since April 2014, after a three and half year hiatus following the whooping he received from Vitali Klitschko in 2010. Since his return to active duty he has gone 9-0 with eight of the wins coming by knockout. One might think that Briggs, having finally gotten the title shot he has so craved, was flattening other contenders on his way to the crown. But nothing could be further from the truth.
The combined records of the men Briggs has defeated since that inglorious night in Hamburg, Germany, when the future Mayor of Kiev landed him in the hospital is a less than impressive 199-87-8. But numbers, like facts, are stupid things and the fight might go forward, even if the joke is less on the combatants than on boxing itself.
Briggs and Oquendo are ranked number three and four, respectively, by the WBA, which made a title fight plausible if not quite welcome. But now that Briggs has joined the likes of Ruslan Chagaev and Lucas Browne, both of whom held the title Briggs was to have fought for and both of whom were stripped for failing drug tests, it?s time put the kibosh on this bout, before another head-scratching scandal hits the sport.
