On October 16, WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko will make his fifth defense against former WBO titlist Shannon Briggs at the 02 World Arena in Altona, Hamburg, Germany. The 39-year-old Klitschko (40-2, 38 KOs) has not lost since being stopped in the sixth round by Lennox Lewis in June of 2003. The 38-year-old Briggs (51-5-1, 45 KOs) is big puncher, with his last three fights ending by way of knockout in the first round.

According to Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions, the two opponents Vitali would like to get in the ring are David Haye (24-1, 22 KOs), the WBA champion, and seven foot Nikolay Valuev (50-2, 34 KOs) of St. Petersburg, Russia. Loeffler says Valuev turned down an offer of $1.5 million to fight Vitali on the October date. Haye has shown little interest in facing either Klitschko brother. Should he get past Briggs, possible fight with Valuev and Haye will be revisited.

"The two that Vitali wants the most would be Valuev, whom we made an offer two before the Briggs deal was done, and then, obviously, Vitali would like to fight David Haye, who also seems to not be too interested in fighting either one of the brothers," said Loeffler.

"Those are fights that Vitali certainly would look forward to, but obviously, in fighting Shannon, we're facing a dangerous opponent who has a lot of knockouts on his record. I think that the figure between the two of them is that they have a combined 83 knockouts."