Best I Faced: Shannon Briggs

Big-punching Shannon Briggs was a touted amateur who, after turning professional, split a pair of fights with two of the greatest heavyweights of all time and became the lineal champion in the process. Later in his career, he scored a last-round, come-from-behind knockout to claim a world title.

Briggs, who was an only child, was born in the notoriously tough Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York, on December 4, 1971.

“It was mean, it was tough. It was rough,” Briggs told The Ring.