American Shannon Briggs defended his World Boxing Organisation heavyweight title for the first time in last night’s fight against the Russian challenger Sultan Ibragimov.

Ibragimov, who won the silver medal at the 2000 Olympics, easily outpointed Shannon "The Cannon" Briggs throughout the 12 rounds despite the American’s weight advantage (50 pounds or 23 kg).
After the referee ended the final round the judges scored it 119-109, 117-111 and 115-113 in favor of the 32-year-old Russian, who improved his record to 21-0-1.

"Tonight I will go to sleep as champion and will wake up as champion, and we'll see what happens after that," Ibragimov said.

After a cautious start, Ibragimov pushed the tempo by the third round and beat Briggs to the punch with stinging left hooks and straight left leads avoiding at the same time the American’s few combinations.

In the ninth round the fight got more spectacular with Ibragimov landing three lefts in succession and shoving Briggs into the corner.

The Russian didn’t stop here and a few minutes later threw a bunch of lefts and a right that left the champion wondering where it came from.

The Boardwalk Hall crowd of 5,132 booed Briggs because he didn’t manage to mount an attack in the latter rounds as his only chance to keep his title was a KO that would have followed.
After the fight the American motivated his loss saying he was still ailing.

"I have been taking all kinds of antibiotics," Briggs said. "I couldn't train for the last two weeks.
"I really didn't want to fight, but if I pulled out they threatened to sue me and they would have stripped me (of the title)."

After Saturday night’s victory, the last of the four major heavyweight belts went to the former Soviet region.

Ibragimov joined the heavyweight champion quartette to which also belong Ukrainan Wladimir Klitschko (IBF champion), Kazakstan’s Oleg Maskaev (WBC) and Uzbekistan’s Ruslan Chageav (WBA).