| Catching up With Shannon Briggs |
| Written by Qiana Williams | |||
| Monday, 12 September 2011 04:21 | |||
 Former heavyweight champion of the world, Shannon "the Cannon" Briggs embodies the true meaning of success. From enduring extreme hardships and tribulations as a kid growing up in New York's own "thorough" borough of Brooklyn, he has grown to become a real life living and breathing legend. Dealing with the lifelong struggle of being an asthmatic, Shannon began his career by winning the NY Golden Gloves championship. Even living with a debilitating breathing condition, he was able to attain the coveted title of heavyweight champion of the world, showing many that doubted him that he would not be stopped. He has and will continue to knock so called boundaries out of his way as he continues to thrive and push toward ultimate life achievement. I caught up with Shannon as he relaxed with his wife and children in his Miami, Florida home. He was down to earth, relaxed and street savvy with an edge and a way of drawing you in as he spoke. You grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn and you've been through a lot. Just some of what you endured as a kid is not your ever y day story of success. From encountering and living through homelessness and seeing many around you fall victim to drugs, how were you able to avoid these horrible distractions? How have your experiences in some of the harshest circumstances helped to mold you into the person and the man that you are today? I was raised by a strong black woman. I accredit all that I am and who I am to my mom. My mom was a tough woman that came from the south. She grew up in Virginia and moved to New York in the early 60's. My mom always had drive and wanted to move make something of her life. She instilled that in me. Not to kick back and be a bum. She always had that drive for success and not just for material things; but actual accomplishments. She was always a driven person and that encouraged me. What I loved about her was she did things to have accomplishments under her belt, like the simple fact that she wanted to attain a degree. Coming from the poor south, she wanted to make it. That was our theme. 'We are gonna make it'. We lost everything when I was thirteen or fourteen. My stepdad was in prison for life. Eventually, he died in prison. My mom was addicted to drugs. Seeing drugs around me like that and how it affected people that I loved kept me away from going down that route but I acted out in other ways. My roots and foundation of having stuff, for me it was the opposite. I went from going to private school, to going to no school at all and then to jail. I had read the bible four times before I was a teenager. I was hitting the streets hard and learning how to hustle by force. I had brains. I could make decisions based on my brains. I was able to become the business man that I am today by using my brains and by using my business sense and instilling it into my marketing. What made you want to become a fighter? Who was your inspiration, if any and why? It wasn't really like I always wanted to be a boxer. I was homeless and so I was sleeping in shelters on the A and the Three train. I had a little edgy streak in me; going from everything to nothing. I was angry. I was an only child, not growing up as a fighter. To lose everything the way that I did, I had a lot of anger. I would fight for mines, and I was told on a couple of occasions that I could really fight. People picked on me a lot and so I had to fight back. My friend's dad had bought some gloves when I was fifteen or sixteen. I was getting into a lot of trouble with the law. I was going back and forth going down south; you know what I'm saying. Doing things I shouldn't have been doing. I was headed toward prison or death. The next thing you know, he bought some gloves and I was drawn in. It was totally different from street fighting. About a year later I was in Brooklyn on the A train at Hoyt- Schermerhorn and I had three dollars left to my name. I took my last three dollars and bought a boxing magazine. I found a gym with a trainer named Zack. Eventually I started living in the gym, and when I walked in it smelled like home to me. And I knew Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson were from my neighborhood. I was inspired that if they could do it, I could do it too. Having asthma is something that can be completely incapacitating. To have this disease and have a career in boxing, which requires such physical strength and endurance is rare. How have you been able to overcome these obstacles? It's been hard. That was the hardest part of my life. I always felt cursed because of it. Asthma was something that plagued my whole life. I was always in the hospital because of my asthma. I had to miss a lot of school. I'd have to go back to school and catch up. One of my deepest memories is when my class from school came to visit me in the hospital. I had been out so long cause of my asthma. It was serious and finally I got to the point where I thought I wouldn't get better. No one ever really thought I could make it as a boxer. I'm the only one in the world to win not just once, but twice with asthma. For me, it was something that drove me hard as well. When someone tells me that I can't do something, I have to go hard. I'm retired, but I'm thinking about coming back. Doing my book, doing a documentary, a publishing company as well as working with a nutraceutical company are some of the businesses that I am involved in. I work for Acquinity Interactive, one of the biggest internet marketing companies in the world. I'm blessed, because a lot of athletes don't wind up with something to fall back on, but I'm working on a lot of different things. I'm fortunate to be able to use my brain and keep streams of income. That's important. At the end of the day it's not all about material things. Besides yourself, who is the boxer that you think has the strongest career and why? If you look at Floyd Mayweather's career, he's undefeated and making millions. De La Hoya is in great shape financially even though I know he's had some problems. He did great and he also speaks well. Most fighters don't wind up living well when it's all said and done. There are only a few that wind up being able to even progress financially. Boxing is vicious and has no mercy on its fighters. When you win, they love you. Otherwise it's 'oh you got knocked out.' Like basketball; you can be doing great all season but if it's the last game and you miss that last shot, people are going to hate you. Then that's what you are remembered for. Not the good. I had to grow to accept that and deal with people with a sense of understanding that they could be fickle. Sports are brutal. People love kicking you when you're down. That was always a drive for me as well. When I lost, people threw me under the bus, on the railroad tracks, and I always would come back even stronger. I've shown people that regardless of what happens to me, I'm gonna rise back. I know a lot of fighters that I began my career with and they are doing really badly. There's no health insurance, no unions or pensions in boxing. For me, it's like I was driven that I wanted to be successful both in and out of the ring. You mentioned that it was during your low points that people would want to kick you when you were down. When you had to endure these different trials, how did you know who to keep around you? I've always been very self driven cause to stay down, you're just down. Sometimes in life it's like every man for himself. I hate to say it, but every once in a while you have to look within and say 'I got this'. Regardless, you can go to Port Authority, Times Square or a shelter and see homeless and people that are living with some sort of a mental illness. A lot of things are attributed to mental illness which I can understand because my mother suffered from one. At some of the lowest points in my life I have also. Imagine being heavyweight champ and at times you have no money, not even a dollar because of managers, promoters and spending habits, even my own. I do that often, go and visit these places. It brings me back to understanding where I came from and gives me an appreciation for what I have now. I finally have a good strong business sense. When I was young, I would go out and buy $100,000 cars and not have any sense of financial stability. I wanted to enjoy it and be king. Those things were making me feel something, but they weren't really satisfying what I was missing. I'm at the point where I have two kids, a wife and a new baby on the way. That's what it's really about. Who would have thought it, but I matured to where I look at things differently. I'm blessed in that sense where I was able to survive a lot and I dealt with the idea of making money but not actually having any. I'm much more level headed now. I was just about Shannon and filling a hole that couldn't really be filled. Losing my mom and dad and being the only child was hard for me. People have vices. Back in the day I was all about excessive spending, the limelight, being a social butterfly and what I could own. Now it's about my legacy. Not what I can make, but what my great, great, great grandchildren can have because of me. My mom told me stories all the time and she inspired me to dream big. So that's what I have always done. Describe what it feels like to win the title of heavyweight champion of the world. You beat George Foreman to collect this title. What was going through your mind at the time? When I fought George Foreman, I was a kid. I didn't really understand what was going on. I didn't look at it like 'wow, I'm fighting George Foreman.' So for me, that was a plus. It was a great experience. I was able to retire an actual living legend. Some people tried to say he won and that goes with the territory of being a kid from Brownsville to come up like a champ. I'm one of the millions that were born in that situation, but I'm in the class of those three great fighters (Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson included) that actually made it. My great grandchildren will know I have the belt. It's definitely a family heirloom. Not only are you a superb fighter and athlete, but also an actor. How is it that you are able to segue from one craft to the next? (Laughs) Boxing is acting. I tell people that all the time. I've been hit so hard that you wanna fall out and scream and cry but you can't show that to your opponent. I put that together with acting; not showing your pain. I was hit so hard by Lenox Lewis and George Foreman that I just wanted to curl up and die. But I would never allow them to see that. If you show your opponent that you're feeling it, their adrenaline will spike. In the last fight I had, I was taking a brutal beating but I was telling my opponent how much of a woman he was and taunting him the whole time. Never let them see you sweat. You've also dabbled in kickboxing and mixed martial arts. Tell me about that experience. Do you prefer one style of fighting over the other? (Laughs) That actually started as a joke with a friend of mine to do some marketing. I had made about four or five trips to Japan and then all of a sudden it was time for me to fight. They told me I had to fight and I was like 'what about the vacation part?' They do kickboxing with no shoes on. I was walking to the ring thinking to myself 'I'm about to die. 'I thought to myself, 'I've never been kicked before.' I don't like being kicked. I couldn't stand another kick so I knocked the guy out. I had already made it up in my mind that I was gonna fall out if I took another kick, so I wasn't going to allow that to happen. During your career, as in any that involves fighting, you've sustained some injuries. What was the worst for you and how were you able to bounce back, recover and return to the ring? One of my worst injuries was when I had a broken rib and a busted eardrum. M y last fight was pretty brutal in regards to punishment that I sustained. There's nothing like broken ribs. Fortunately, Klitschko wasn't much of a body puncher. I only had one arm working but I wasn't gonna let him knock me out. That was a tough fight for me, but what hurt me the most was the fact that I wasn't paid for it. My promoter and partner at the time Greg Cohen stole my money and that was a blow to everything that I had taken so much time and energy to put together. For the company to be stolen from me and to leave me for dead in a hospital in Germany showed me what kind of people they truly were. But this is nothing new in this sport. Like I said before, boxing is very vicious. What motivates you to get up and do this every day? Right now the products that I'm working with are what help to motivate me. They have a huge database of Internet marketing and product developing. Before I was doing it just to promote myself as a boxer and now it's about these products and being able to help people naturally. www.modernadmedia.com You're widely known as Shannon the Cannon. How did you get that nickname? I don't even know how it came about to be honest with you. I guess it just rhymed well and people went at it. I was never one for a nickname throughout the entire course of my career. I think it got attached to me in 2005 or 2006 and then all of a sudden people started calling me that. I took pride in not having a nickname for most of my career. Now it's trademarked, so I'm kind of just gonna stick with it. How do you keep your body in tip top shape the way that you do? What helps you to remain so disciplined and focused? It's not easy at all. In fact, it's really hard. When I'm going for a movie role or an acting role I wanna be prepared. After working out for 22 years, it helps my brain more when I'm working out. It detoxifies my body. When I'm not working out I'm sluggish and much more tired. When I'm training hard physically, I'm more creative and thinking outside the box. Working out helps me in a huge way. To do that, I have to be extreme. When I do extreme things like running ten or eleven miles and working out really hard, I feel it in my brain and it feels good overall. What can we expect next from Shannon Briggs; the boxer, the actor and well-rounded entrepreneur? My ultimate goal is to become a billionaire and to help as many people as I possibly can. One day I want to be on CBS and tell my story about helping to save lives through natural medicine. There are so many vitamins and supplements that can help to save your life. 14 people die every day from asthma. I want to make a difference in life and want people to be able to look back on that. In terms of using natural products to treat asthma as opposed to drugs that have side effects. The big pharmaceutical companies make so much money off of drugs that do more harm than good. It's a fifty billion dollar market and 20 billion of that is just for asthma alone. I work with a lot of different types of doctors; even in skin care. A lot of women suffer from things that can be taken care of naturally. I just really want to make a difference so that in two hundred years, if my name comes up they can say 'there he goes. Shannon Briggs did this and he did that, but he came from very humble beginnings.' You can learn more about Shannon, his career and his movement on his official website http://www.shannonbriggs.com/ or by joining his Shannon Briggs fan page. http://shannonbriggs.com/Fan/?p=11 You can also check out his new official fan page on face book http://www.facebook.com/pages/ShannonTheCannonBriggs/84011434461 and follow him on twitter. http://twitter.com/#!/Mr_CannonBriggs Qiana L Williams Singer/songwriter and novelist, Qiana Williams uses her professional fashion background to report on the hottest in trend and style for men and women, beauty and a wide range of topics. You can gain access to more of her writing and sneak a peek at her upcoming novel on her facebook writings fan page and follow her on twitter@Qianathegoddess. For more articles like Catching up With Shannon Briggs, please visit the NYC/The New Yorkers Section of TimesSquare.com
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