by Andre Courtemanche, March, 29, 2007
WBO World Heavyweight Champion Shannon Briggs has spent the past 15 days at the world-famous Hilton Head Health Institute in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, working out with the institute’s personal trainers and running on the island’s beautiful beaches. Briggs has been healing from aspirated pneumonia and, in addition to using the traditional course of nebulizers and inhalers, has been spending hours in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. The power punching champion says he is feeling better than he has in years and is already below the 268 pounds he weighed in his title-winning effort against Sergei Liakhovich last November. Taunts from Ibragimov's promoters seem to have fired up Briggs. When asked if the barbs and insults really motivated his man, Briggs manager, Scott Hirsch, said, "I'll just say they awoke a sleeping giant."