Wladimir Klitschko has no intention of coming out of retirement to fight countryman and fellow Ukrainian icon Oleksandr Usyk.
But the former unified heavyweight champion has contemplated an unlikely return and could have been tempted to box a different opponent.
Shannon Briggs, the former world titlist who has previously gleefully taunted Wladimir Klitschko and boxed his elder brother Vitali, supports the elder statesmen of the division coming back.
“There’s no such thing as impossible,” Briggs told Sky Sports. “As we know mankind has done some amazing things.”
The American admires Klitschko. “He’s such a tough man, to become heavyweight champion and be fighting for your country at war with so many lives being lost. This is a true champion, a true strong man. It’s great for boxing,” Briggs said.
“I’d like to fight him, no secret about that. Can’t take nothing away from him as a fighter, as a human being. What a guy.”
Tyson Fury defeated Wladimir Klitschko in 2015
Boxing comebacks at such an advanced age are dangerous. But Briggs, who is even older than Klitschko at 53, now wants to make one himself.
“You can take an old car and you can restore it. You can put in new wheels, new spark plugs, new battery and that car runs like a brand new car. It’s true. That what I feel for myself,” he insisted.
“Anything is possible. You can turn back time.
“Age is no longer a factor.”
But venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum, who steered a 45-year-old George Foreman to becoming the sport’s oldest heavyweight champion, provided a dose of realism.
Oleksandr Usyk celebrates with Wladimir Klitschko (Photo: Mark Robinson/Matchroom)
“Remember when Foreman came back, it wasn’t 45 when he came back, it was more like 41 and he had already lost to [Evander] Holyfield and he had been tested so he knew where he was. But the idea that Klitschko would now come back at 48, without having interim fights, seems a little out of the question,” Arum told Sky Sports.
“Seems that way,” he added. “I just don’t know. I’ve always been a great fan of both of the Klitschkos and certainly the Ukrainian people. But I’m not sure.
“It’s hard for me to believe that Klitschko can come back and go into a heavyweight championship fight without a series of interim fights. It’s just really hard to believe.”
Briggs’ cause
While his own return to boxing would 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 New York neighbourhood of Brownsville.
Briggs is bringing a boxing club to Brownsville (AP Photo/Martin Meissner).
“I’ve been motivated to do this since I was a young child, a homeless teenager, who slept in a boxing gym as refuge,” Briggs told Sky Sports.
“I’m opening up a boxing academy in Brownsville, Brooklyn, the home of myself, 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, with 100,000 people living in this neighbourhood not even two miles in size it tells me there must be something in the water. What’s in the water is pain.
“When you have a poverty-stricken neighbourhood with violence and pain, you tend to get people who literally fight their way out of it. Mike Tyson is one of those people. I’m one of those people.”
