Full transcript: Shannon Briggs on London Real
0:00 Brian Rose: Shannon, I always asked a few people a couple questions at the end. I’m gonna hit you with these. If you could pick up a magic phone and ring up the 20 year old Shannon Briggs and give that young man a bit of advice.
0:20 Shannon Briggs: Wow, how much time I got on the phone?
0:24 Brian Rose: What would you tell him?
0:26 Brian Rose: Excuse me, Jim, you were boxing at this point, right?
0:29 Shannon Briggs: And when I was 20 years old and would be the perfect time for me to talk to him. It would make perfect. Tom’s got the dreadlocks, he’s winning. Yeah, nominal shape to us, and also deep down inside he’s got lots of stuff locked away.
0:43 Yeah, and he’s basically masking it. He’s using material things to try and cover it, and take me to pain. He’s using, he’s jumping into frivolous relationships with women so that he can use that as a escape. You know, as for my song, you know, something else to do an escape. And just chill out, champ.
1:08 I just focus on your craft. Do the best you can. Take a lot of pressure off yourself. You go, be okay. You’re gonna be okay.
1:15 Just have fun. That’s the biggest thing I would tell myself. Have fun. I was having fun, you know. Would you watch a kid play, Brian?
1:22 They play all day. Yeah. They what they want, they just having fun, but you say go to work. Mmm. I like work.
1:28 Brian Rose: That’s that work in itself sounds hard, right? Why did you say play? You have fun, you enjoy what you’re doing.
1:34 Shannon Briggs: So I was, I’m, I would have really enjoyed what I was doing as a fighter and had more fun. That’s my temperament.
1:40 If I’m having fun, I’m having fun, and I’m smiling. Life is good, but I want another mole. Life ain’t that good.
1:47 Brian Rose: Check my friend, I don’t remember many smiling pictures of Shannon Briggs back in the day.
1:52 Shannon Briggs: Yeah, not a lot of smiles then.
1:54 My response, telling ya no, not not back there. No, I know, I’m not serious. Nah, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me, champ. It wasn’t me.
2:02 Brian’s an act. It was an act. This is what they wanted me to be. They wanted me to be the next Mike Tyson. I’m a boxer.
2:09 I was more of a skillful fighter before, you know, people was even looking at like that type of style. This was me naturally. You look at my amateur style. I was just fooling amateur box with no experience. They do me in there and I watched Muhammad Ali.
2:23 I just kept watching the VHS tape, Muhammad Ali, and I just memorized everything he was doing, saying, talking, how he walked, and then I got a rear office and tape, and once I got a Ray Robinson tape, Brian, nobody could tell me nothing. I jumped in the ring and I started copying everything Ray Robinson did, and I laid there and I was winning. It was like five fights, I want a New York state championship, Empire State Games, firefights, phenomenal, spectacular, spectacular skills, like who’s this kid?
2:54 He’s taking me around, taking me tri-state area, Boston, nobody can stop him. USA team, 11 fight, no national power, winner less than eight, nine fights. Now I’m in the USA. I’m one of us, a team. I’m traveling world now, you fights the wrong, the two-time Olympic champion, I, Cuba, and he killed thousands.
3:15 50,000 people screaming, I’m right, but you can’t tell. Watch the team, you can’t tell. You look at me. He should do his big thing when he jumps up in at me before every fight. He would jump up in her and the ant, and he’d do like this and lay on the ground, and everyone would be like, whoa.
3:30 You know, so I did it before he did it. When I guess about this money, I jumped off it, and he looked, and he was like, and if you look at the fight, he was sure. He was sure. He was sure. I don’t care what nobody said.
3:44 I had seen him a couple days before the fight in Olympic Village, big huge six six machine, built like a steel robot. I’ve never seen a man like this, neck almost law like a to the ground, like he was so tall but his arms could touch the ground. I was like, what kind of machine is this? But I said one thing: he’ll never know what I’m thinking, so I went up to him in Olympic Village. I was like, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
4:15 It was like he was looking at me. He never said he’s an Olympic champion. He’s a leader for everybody in the world, but he got a crazy American from Brownsville, from Brownsville, seeing that kind of, never seen it, so he was shook up, but he got on the scale before the fight. He was 220. It was not supposed to be over 200.
4:34 201. He was 220. I was like, no, it was like, no, no, no. Got him. Oh, speaking Spanish, got him on the scale.
4:41 I was like, you know, I got on the scale. I was like 180 because I had been over there for so long, and I was in the finals. I had eighty… was no. It was a new head, wasn’t enough food. Substantial food for us, to going to a family of four.
4:59 I might not have no. No food, hardly knew. Tremendous Snickers bars. I would, but you couldn’t tell when I jumped up and you did that in the ring. Well, he, what he does, watch the tape, y’all.
5:10 I swear to Brian on my mama, she buys, he look at the tape, cash, so did like this, put on his glasses and started talking to total field Stevenson. He’s looked at me, put his glasses on, cuz he couldn’t believe this American was over there, and he was you know, brass, Camela, don’t care. He quit me, boo. I gotta back up. I tried to scrap with him, but he clipped me, and it was a rap, but I still went out there.
5:40 I still gave him my best. I still was like, yo, anybody else would have been trembling, legs shaking, we’re doing out there same time, what the doc. I was like, now I bought a da bomb to try to catch me a kill first.
5:54 Brian Rose: Oh my god, on that second note. what’s the best advice you ever received here in your career?
6:00 Could have been from good, I mean from your mom. It could have been from a coach, or someone. Word of advice. What’s the best one?
6:08 Shannon Briggs: I don’t know.
6:09 What the advice has been, a lot of good advice, and well, that took it a lot, but I know one moment, and my wife, I’ll never forget, is when, this is strange, I’ll tell you, this is some weird connection going on. I started boxing. I’m like 88, you know, I’m saying something like the 88, you know, but I was just dialing going in, some and one day, this disturbs in the rain. He was, you know, fighting bots, and it was like, yo, he needs some work, and I had came around.
6:41 I was hitting his bag and stuff like that, and he said, hey, hey kid, you want a box? I was a nylon box. I’ll give you a couple of dollars. I said, I’m hungry, the stomach growling. I’d pay either dare to him.
6:53 I come with dollars. I was like, how much? Like five dollars. Come on, somebody. Alright, five hours from make father Isaac by unfortunately he’s a french fries juice, and I may have some bus money, so I’m are getting the ringing him a small way to do them.
7:13 I’m like, man, it’s easy. He tried to get home. I’m Louie going punch of them. I’m young, I’m like slipping. He’s bleeding.
7:23 I’m like, yeah, mister, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. He’s still trying to come at me, so I said, mister, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do there, you know? He said, I, you know, I just wanna make the five hours. He like, I can’t. You’re good, you’re good.
7:35 You could say came up to me after sparring, you could, man, why don’t you keep going? He was talking, mumble, or do you come to the gym? What’s wrong with you? You’re so good at this stuff. What do you bid weight?
7:44 I’d never seen you no more. Yeah, you could be so he wouldn’t even hit the bad. Mother, come on, come on, don’t you, worked out he was like, no, this kid, this kid. It was like, this man crazy, and it was Vito Antuofermo, the legendary middleweight champion, and he wanted to say I’m gonna train you, and he started training me. He started training me every day.
8:03 We don’t answer from. I just started. You know, I came a couple times. He started training me, and we don’t meant a lot to me, you know? I’m saying, fortunately I don’t see him much of them, but Vito did a lot for me, and it says that, you know, he encouraged me because he believed in me when nobody did.
8:21 He was quiet, he was a quiet man. He was quietly, you know, and I seen him not too many. It goes, many years ago. I still got loved one, but ironically years, years there, you know, I’m pro-life, or maybe in 2005, it was I was fighting a guy named Abraham, okay, a kind on ESPN, and, and who comes up to me? Marvin Hagler.
8:50 I had fought the night before, and was the Boxing Hall of Fame awards ceremony for the weekend, and Mama Hadley came up to me and said, he’s funny. I kid you not, he double-take. He seen me and he double tape, and he walked up to me, and he said, hey, just like they said, hey, a busy pope usually, hey. I said, what’s up, champ? How you doing?
9:15 Chairman was so happy they even saw me. He said, I watch you fight last night, cuz we it was the whole weekend, and I had four tonight, and next day he said, he said you could do something. He said, I said, thank you, Chuck. He said, no. He said, no, I mean it.
9:32 And he said, even though Mama Hog was a serious man, yeah. He said, no, he poked me again. He said, no, I mean it. He’s that you give in shake, you could really do something, and that would, to me, you talk about advice that was the biggest thing I could feel. Now I had, now the convention is they fought each other, they fought each other, so the, a veto at the firm, who basically gives me a good push in the beginning, and then you got Marvin Hagler, who tells me I have potential, and that could be something.
10:02 So that was just two moments for two different people that I would really remember. There’s been many. I’ve met Holly. I’ve met a jock. Joe Frazier was a Joe Frazier like me, man.
10:11 Joe Frazier used to be like this, cake a fight. Joe Frazier, whatever, man. I don’t know if his BS, the way every time he said he would double-take. That’s him. You say come in, hey, really fight, you know, and you talk about regret, sometimes I wish I had reach my potential fully maximized my career reached.
10:31 I don’t know how good I could have been, Brian. I don’t know how good I could have been. I don’t know what I could have done if I had a trainer or someone who had mesh wood, well. And I’m grateful for Teddy Atlas. If it wasn’t for Teddy Atlas, I wouldn’t be sitting here.
10:46 If it wasn’t for an ephemeral, was a for Jimmy O’Farrell, who was his gym. I first started City Boxing Club. Guys like Larry, Larry Jones, Bulldog. These are old gold men was in the gym, you know, I’m saying, Bell, Mr. Tate. These guys were part of my life that I remember.
11:05 I had a great memory, so I remember all these people that touch me. I’m appreciative, and I’m so appreciative to have met them. I’m so appreciative to have experienced what I have with them, because it was a phenom. I was sleeping on the train. I was, you know, basically homeless.
11:19 I was nothing. So all that got me to Lyman today. I’m staying with you. I’m feeling good. I’m looking good.
11:25 I’m smelling good. Let’s don’t jam it. It’s that crazy. All these random strangers just gonna give you a nudge and push you along.
11:31 Brian Rose: Yes, and now you’re doing the same with, you know, let’s go, change, just give everybody a little bit of something, and you’re already doing it.
11:38 Pass it along. When they call it moving forward, but paid for delay, or for yeah, that’s it, forward.
11:43 Brian Rose: Last questions, just to that 20 year old that’s out there watching us now. You know, man, woman, in any country around the world, what advice do you give to them? They’re looking down the barrel of their day, and they’re like, man, I got all these problems, but I can’t be like Shannon.
11:57 Yeah, I can’t do all these great things. I’m not a champ. I how did that? What do they do? What advice to give to them?
12:04 Shannon Briggs: What are you kidding me? Look at me. I told you I’m from nothing. They K said you’re never gonna be nothing. A friend of mine’s mom told me when I had a little success at, turned pro.
12:17 I had my first fight. I used to walk around with the VHS tapes, and I, we had duplicates, and I would give them out to people. I just, my first fight with my little Preston, and I had to see those little Tom, and she seen me, she said wow, I can’t believe it. You really in box, are you really on TV? We thought you’d never be [expletive], and she said that she said we all thought you’d never be [expletive].
12:42 Excuse my language. I saw, apologize, and that was a moment that no forgot either, because I was in her living room, and I’m like, wow, that’s what you thought of me? You know, me and a lot of people minded for having, because we were homeless. You don’t look good as a homeless person, you know, a homeless teenager. The odds that you gonna become successful were very, very, you know, slim to none.
13:06 And to turn it around when I do and how I did, and you know, I didn’t do great. I wish I had done more and became a great legendary boxer, but it didn’t happen that way. So that’s just someone who regret that. I never really know what my maximum potential could have been as a fighter, and it’s okay. I’m still, I still got time left.
13:28 If they give me, they did me a couple of tune-ups, and I didn’t fight it with the right team behind me. I could clip anybody at the right night. I’m still strong. I still get hard. My chin is made of granite.
13:38 They literally can’t stop me. Klitschko, mesquite me with everything. Bombs is raining on my head, on her face, and I was like, year, let’s go, champ. I’m just gonna get him, but I have this arm. Champ, I only had one arm, and although I’m, I’m a beast with autumn.
13:52 I needed a hook. I needed my left hook, because with my hook I timed him, in an attempt for around here, my right hand, he wobbled. Watch the fight, knife around. I wild him right at me and said it. He said, you hurt my brother, and we were like, oh my little silly, you know.
14:04 I clipped him with a right hand, but I needed to come back with that hook, because if I woulda came back with that hook I’m gonna clear his head off. I’m gonna clear them. Chill, chill, chill. My apologies.
