Beaten Briggs tarnishes reputation with lacklustre performance
The once mighty Paul Briggs single-handedly destroyed every bit of his credibility along with any future career opportunities related to boxing when his comeback was derailed after all of twenty-nine seconds, including the ten-count issued by referee Pat Russell.
A clearly sluggish, unfit and unmotivated Briggs brought himself to the lowest point in his boxing career when he was felled by a single glancing left jab from Danny Green (29-3, 26 KOs) in front of a sell-out crowd at Perth's Challenge Stadium.
Briggs (26-4, 18 KOs), a man who had previously held the Australian light-heavyweight title and a string of credible regional titles looked like a failed science experiment as he lumbered and stumbled around the ring in what was really a sorry excuse for a boxing match. Despite putting up a less than credible account of himself in the squared circle, this reporter believes that Briggs should be cut some slack.
Like many current or previous fans of "The Hurricane", some hope lingered that this was perhaps going to be a spirited contest when the two-time world title challenger banged his gloves and raised his hands during his introduction in what was perhaps a feint attempt to rally support or even attempt to get himself back into "the zone”.
For the ill-informed and unaware, Briggs retired in 2007 after concerned were raised about Briggs' neurologic state having pursued pugilistic warfare for over fifteen years against elite fighters in both boxing and kickboxing. These concerns were confirmed when Briggs was dropped by big-punching Russian Victor Oganov and one-time prospect Kerry Foley in preparation for a bout against former world champion Hugo Garay in the US.
The fighter-turned-expert commentator stated several times on national television over the last year that he was happy in retirement and would not be swayed out. This is where the ever-persuasive language that is the Australian dollar came into play. It is believed that Briggs was offered $250,000 AUD to take his part in the IBO cruiserweight title fight against Green; an amount that is significantly more than the estimated $500 Briggs received to do his commentary work for Main Event.
Doubts were raised from the very beginning when reports from inside the Briggs camp were stating that Briggs was being thoroughly beaten by sparring partners Nader Hamdan, Garth Wood and Peter Mitrevski Jr. The first two fighters are super-middleweights and the last is a light-middleweight; this tells you all you need to know about the state of Briggs leading into such a high-profile fight.
Other inside statements also suggested that the only reason why Briggs jumped directly into a fight with Green was because he simply would not have won any kind of warm-up contest. Briggs is a warrior that quite simply fell into a trap and gave way to what was the most tempting of all offers.
Whether or not a tarnished legacy was worth the payout is yet to be seen.