Lennox Lewis would have beaten Oleksandr Usyk, says Shannon Briggs

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└Lennox Lewis and Oleksandr Usyk, heavyweight kings of their respective eras

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Though he lost to Lewis, Briggs gave a good account of himself in an entertaining fight.

He believes Lewis' jab would have been the key to overcoming Usyk.

“Lennox Lewis beats Usyk,” Briggs told Mr Gamble.

“The jab. It’s the jab, but it wouldn’t have been easy. It’s the jab, it’s the right hand. The problem is Lewis is a monster. He’s big, he’s in shape. He’s got that jab, like when he fought Tyson, or Holyfield, a few fights there he had when he was in his tip-top form.”

Briggs is also an admirer of Usyk.

“But again, it’s hard to say because Usyk is not normal,” he said. “He’s not normal. The conditioning that he brought to the game, just the work rate, it’s hard to say. And we haven’t seen him, this is what scares me about Usyk, honestly. We ain’t never seen nobody just beat him up. I don’t even think he’s been dropped.”

Usyk remains the leading figure of a strong heavyweight era, having recorded victories over Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois. But in Briggs' view, the division was even stronger during the final decade of the last century.

“There’s no era ever like the ’90s,” he said.

“You had David Tua, Chris Byrd, Hasim Rahman, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Bert Cooper, Ray Mercer, Shannon Briggs. I could go on and on. Just name any opponent that fought Lennox Lewis. They were tough guys. There are so many people from the ’90s who would have done great in any era now.

“The ’90s was vicious, bro. The ’90s had every fighter banging out every week. Tuesday night fights, Friday night fights. There were bang-outs, there was always something going on. Shout out to the ’90s heavyweight era. Best era ever, in my opinion.

“James Toney. Roy Jones went up to heavyweight. This was an amazing era. John Ruiz was so tough. People sleep on him. John Ruiz was one of the toughest fighters ever in history. Tough fights, man, tough fights.”