Lennox Lewis vs. Shannon Briggs Lennox Lewis vs. Shannon Briggs Lennox Lewis vs. Shannon Briggs, billed as "March Badness", was a professional boxing match contested on March 28, 1998 for the WBC and "Lineal" Heavyweight Championships. After Lennox Lewis successfully defended his WBC title in a dominating first round knockout victory over Andrew Golota, the WBC organized an elimination match between "Lineal" champion George Foreman and Shannon Briggs to determine who would become Lewis' next opponent. The match was held on November 22, 1997 and went the full 12 rounds. Though many assumed that Foreman had won the match, (both Harold Lederman and the associated
Heavyweight boxing championship records and statistics only universally recognized form of a world championship until July 2, 1921, when Jack Dempsey became the inaugural NBA Heavyweight Champion. The growing popularity of boxing led to a birth of various regional sanctioning organizations, with each recognizing their own champion. The major governing bodies were the National Boxing Association, formed in 1921, the New York State Athletic Commission, found after the Walker Law legalized prizefighting in New York in 1920, and the International Boxing Union, created in 1911 in Paris in attepmt create a unified international governing body for professional boxing. Both NBA and NYSAC made then-lineal champion Jack