Wladimir Klitschko’s return ‘hard to believe’? “Nothing is impossible,” says Shannon Briggs. Boxing news

Wladimir Klitschko has no intention of coming out of retirement to fight his compatriot and fellow Ukrainian icon Oleksandr Usyk.

But the former unified heavyweight champion contemplated an unexpected comeback and might have been tempted to face a different opponent.

Shannon Briggs, the former world titlist who previously happily mocked Wladimir Klitschko and cornered his older brother Vitali, is backing the return of the elder statesmen of the division.

“There is no such thing as impossible,” Briggs said. Sky Sports. “We also know that humanity has done some amazing things.”

The American admires Klitschko. “He’s a very tough guy, to become a heavyweight champion and fight for your country in a war with so many lives lost. That’s a real champion, a real tough guy. It’s great for boxing,” Briggs said.

“I would love to fight him, it’s no secret. I can’t take anything away from him as a fighter, as a human being. What a guy.”

A boxing comeback at such an advanced age is dangerous. But Briggs, who is older than Klitschko at 53, now wants to make one himself.

“You can take an old car and you can restore it,” he insisted. “You can put in new wheels, new spark plugs, a new battery, and this car runs like a completely new car. That’s right. That’s how I feel about myself.”

“Anything is possible. You can go back in time.”

“Age is no longer a factor.”

But revered boxing promoter Bob Arum, who guided 45-year-old George Foreman to become the sport’s oldest heavyweight champion, offered a dose of realism.

“Remember when Foreman came back, he wasn’t 45 when he came back, he was more like 41 and he had already lost to (Evander) Holyfield and been tested so he knew where he was. But the idea that Klitschko would come back now at the age of… “Forty-eight years, without fighting temporary battles, seems a bit unthinkable.” Sky Sports.

“It seems that way,” he added. “I don’t know. I’ve always been a big fan of Klitschko and certainly of the Ukrainian people. But I’m not sure.

“It’s hard for me to believe that Klitschko can come back and have a heavyweight championship fight without a series of interim fights. It’s really hard to believe.”

Briggs reason

While his return to boxing will be controversial, Briggs is also fulfilling another of his dreams – establishing a boxing club with an academy to provide training for other roles in the sport, in the Brownsville neighborhood of New York.

“I’ve been motivated to do this since I was a little kid, a homeless teenager, sleeping in a boxing gym as a refuge,” Briggs said. Sky Sports.

“I will be opening a boxing academy in Brownsville, Brooklyn, home of Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe, the great Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Zab Judah, Danny Jacobs, Curtis Stevens and our new rising star Bruce Carrington.

“If we can have six or seven boxing champions (from Brownsville), which is only 1.8 miles in size by the way, not even half of Hyde Park in England, where 100,000 people live in this two-mile neighborhood, that tells me it should be There is something in the water, what is in the water is pain.

“When you have a neighborhood that has poverty and violence and pain, you tend to find people who are literally fighting their way out of that neighborhood. Mike Tyson is one of those people. I’m one of those people.”