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Australian light heavyweight contender Paul ’Hurricane’ Briggs has sacked his former trainer Jack Mosley in the wake of his heartbreaking majority decision loss to Tomasz Adamek for the vacant WBC belt two months ago and hired the services of well respected trainer Johnny Lewis to guide him to another world title shot.
Lewis, one of Australia’s best credentialed trainers, has guided Jeff Fenech, Jeff Harding and Kostya Tszyu to world titles.
“The decision was more based on my previous trainer,” revealed Briggs, 23-2 (17). “I don’t really want to go into it, but I’m just happy to have made the decision to come home and train with Johnny. I just feel like it’s a better move for me.”
In an effort to get the best from this union, Briggs and his family will be relocating from the Gold Coast to Sydney as he continues his quest for world championship gold.
“After the last fight I sat down and looked at what the best move I could make for my career would be and in doing that, basing my training out of Australia as well,” said Briggs.
“I was a bit tired of being based in the States. I’ve done the American thing and the only benefit of being over there was the fact that I could get great sparring. And that’s really the only reason I went over there, because I couldn’t get the sparring I wanted over here.
“In saying that, I’ve got Danny Green and Anthony Mundine here and a lot of other guys and in turn I’ve got a lot of great contacts over there too, so I should be able to bring top quality sparring over.”
Briggs, who relocated to the States shortly after his decision win over rugged Mexican Jesus Ruiz in March last year, hired Jack Mosley to coach him in his bid for a world title. Although their partnership proved fruitful initially, with Briggs successfully negotiating his way through a foul-filled contest against Croatian beanpole Stipe Drews last August, their relationship soured after a disagreement over Mosley’s choice of cutman for the Adamek bout. As fate would have it, this decision would have a significant impact on the result of the fight.
In one of the better fights seen this year, Briggs fought his heart out against Adamek will blood pouring into his left eye from a cut that was caused by an accidental head clash that occurred in the 2nd round. Despite Adamek’s face looking like it had been through a meat grinder by the conclusion of the bout, two of the three judges ruled in favour of the unbeaten Pole while the third judge scored it even.
Briggs insists that the result would be different in a rematch and says that if the cut had been handled properly the first time around he would’ve stood a much greater chance of annexing the WBC crown.
“Just get my work rate right up and use a really good cutman,” said Briggs of what he would do differently in a return bout against Adamek. “I just couldn’t see throughout the fight, I had blood in my eyes for eleven rounds. I mean I’ve fought with elbows and everything and I’ve never been cut before. This is the first time I’ve ever been cut and the way the corner handled it was detrimental to the outcome of the fight.
“I became more defensive and started counter punching more as I tried to land a big bomb of a counter punch rather than just getting my work rate up. I knew he was just going to pepper away and score the points, but in saying that I knew he couldn’t hurt me and I knew I could hurt him. That will be the major difference in a rematch.”
With Kostya Tszyu’s future stilling hanging in the balance, Briggs says he doesn’t believe there will be any timing conflicts with Lewis’s dual responsibilities.
“I don’t think he will be splitting his time,” said Briggs.
The 29-year-old New Zealand born Australian is looking forward to getting back in the ring in October against an opponent to be named, possibly in Germany on the undercard of Ademek’s inaugural title defense against Thomas Ulrich.
“It’s going to be interesting,” said Briggs. “It looks like my next fight will be on the 15th of October in Germany on the undercard of Ulrich-Adamek, so it will be interesting to see what I’ve taken anything out of Adamek, if anything. He’s never really been hit hard or hurt like that so psychologically it’s going to be interesting to see where he is at.”
Although his boxing career is a long way its conclusion, Briggs has already penned his biography with assistance from Salmon Gregor. Published by HarperCollins, ‘Heart and Soul: The Life of Paul Briggs’ chronicles the former kickboxer’s descent into a life of drugs and crime before he made a life altering choice to pursue boxing seriously and follow his dream to become world champion.
‘Heart and Soul: The Life of Paul Briggs’ goes on sale 28 September 2005 and will be available online and through all good bookstores.
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© Copyright / All Rights reserved: Doghouse Boxing 1998-2005
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Interview by Anthony Cocks, Site Editor (July 23, 2005) 
