Liakhovich/Briggs: Latest Greatest?

Klitschko/Briggs down tubes; Brooklyn Dread signs with DKP

When Oleg Maskaev captured the WBC title from Hasim Rahman, many otherwise slumping men sat up and noticed. Among them was fight manager par excellence, Shelly Finkel. Finkel captained the U.S.S. Tyson during the years when it counted, and he’s now at the helm of the Good Ship Klitschko (IBF), making killer deals for his contract killer on the high seas.

Klitschko/Finkel have a Nov. 11 date at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Wladimir Klitschko was going to face Brooklyn’s own Shannon Briggs, he of the golden dreadlocks, in the belief that the world champ vs. local kid in the local kid’s hometown angle, though hackneyed and cliched, can still be made to work.

The fight almost, sort of, maybe if you stretched it, kind of looked good on paper, so it could be made to look good on TV. But then Big O did the unthinkable and torpedoed the Rock, and Klitschko-Briggs, from Team Klitschko’s perspective, lost its buoyancy.

Klitschko’s reps offered the date to Maskaev. They made overtures all around. Shannon Briggs grew tired of being told to hurry up and wait, grew tired of being dissed and dicked around, so he signed with DKP (Don King Productions), with the stipulation that he’ll get a shot at WBO heavyweight champ Sergei Liakhovich, also possibly in November, also possibly in New York.

The White Wolf’s been clamoring for a fight, but he was calling out his peers, the other division champs.

Not sure Shannon Briggs, while ranked #3 by the WBO, advances that agenda.