Lennox Lewis vs. Shannon Briggs Frank Cappuccino stopped the fight and awarded Lewis the victory by technical knockout. 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
George Foreman vs. Shannon Briggs had the fight scored 116–112 and 117–113 in favor of Briggs, giving him both the majority decision win and the "Lineal" heavyweight title. The fight would prove to be the final one of Foreman's career. However, shortly after his loss to Briggs, his promoters Jeff Wald and Irving Azoff, feeling that Foreman had clearly won, launched a protest in an effort to get the decision overturned which would allow Foreman to move on to face Lewis for his WBC heavyweight title; the decision, though, was upheld. In 1998, Foreman would agree to come out of retirement once again to face