“I’ve had that many people want me to talk and I just wasn’t interested,” the Gold Coaster says of the 2010 bout that lasted 29 seconds, saw him accused of diving and resulted in a wild Green calling him an “(expletive) dog” as the referee waved off the contest.

“My ego wanted to keep it hidden. I didn’t want anyone to talk about it, but now it doesn’t matter because I’ve transformed.”

That word — transformation — is a regular theme with the new Briggs, the one who has fought back from the depths of despair and serious health issues to reinvent himself as a mentor to aspiring pugilists, a role model for reforming bad boys and a rising presence on the corporate and motivational circuit.

“It took me years to recover and it was a journey of awakening as to who I was as a man,” Briggs says.

“I prided myself so much on this rubbish of being a tough guy but it was nothing to do with being tough … being present for your children — that’s tough.

“I’ve done some things I could’ve got 20 years (in jail) for but I didn’t and I believe it was so I gained knowledge. We went through that bikie craze on the Gold Coast and I could tell you things about some of the men I’ve helped transform that would blow your mind.

“I can’t mention names but they’re not going to go to a counsellor for help but they’ll come to me because my life is an example of what can happen with discipline.”

FROM BOY TO BOXER

Briggs grew up in Brisbane and doesn’t shy away from the fact his role models weren’t model citizens.

“My father, friends of my father — that’s what I thought being a hard man was,” he says. “I was attached to that gangster side of things.

“From the age of 20 to 24, it was hectic, bananas … I was part of it all and buried many mates. My brother’s done two stints in maximum security prison. It’s like I dipped my toe in that water enough to have knowledge of what it’s about.

“Then boxing saved me.”

Having spent his youth as a kickboxer, Briggs embraced the sport of Ali, Frazier and Tyson as a 24-year-old. For five years, he just kept winning before securing a No. 1 rating and a shot at the WBC light heavyweight world crown against Pole Tomasz Adamek.

Their 2005 world title fight, described as “one of the most brutal in recent memory”, saw Adamek emerge victorious on points. They met in another epic the following year for the same result — a majority decision to Adamek.

One fight later in 2007 and a battered Briggs had retired.

“I had the onset of Parkinson’s disease,” he says. “I had the shakes going.

“I’d be standing there and then it’d feel like an earthquake. I had seen neurologists in Sydney and they couldn’t put a finger on what it was.”

And then along came Danny Green.

THAT FIGHT

“You’d have to say I was insane,” Briggs says of his decision to fight Green for an IBO title three years after retiring for health reasons.

“But I was desperate. I was bankrupt. My marriage had failed. What did I have to lose? But that’s what the whole romance of boxing is about. That’s why Rocky was such a big franchise.”

The fallout from the first round knockout was huge.

Green declared his rival wouldn’t be “getting paid a cent” after he failed to rise from a seemingly innocuous jab. The WA Professional Combat Sports Commission fined Briggs $75,000 and labelled the fight a “sham”.

Two years later, Briggs was vindicated when the courts ruled the fight was legitimate.

“The farce was the doctor signed me off to fight when I had retired because I wasn’t OK,” he says.

“I’ve never thrown a fight in my life and where I messed up was being that wrapped up in my ego that I believed I could do it. I was delusional.”

FIGHTING BACK

Briggs has come a long way from when he didn’t want to set foot outside his home for fear of being judged.

With the guidance of his own mentor, he says he’s used diet to overcome his physical issues and is as “ripped” as he was in his fighting day.

He’s loving life as a father to his two teenage children and, after seven years of singledom, a partner to his girlfriend of six months. He’s incredibly passionate about the young boxers he’s training at a Bonogin gym.

Life is good and, as far as he’s concerned, it’s all due to one fight.

“That last fight I had with Green was the greatest of my 109 fights because it was pivotal to my transformation. It wouldn’t have been the desired end for most but it was absolutely perfect for me.”

SHORT JABS

On bumping into Danny Green for the only time after their infamous fight: I took a fighter to Perth at the end of last year. Danny walked up and told him ‘I can’t wait to watch you fight’. He then asked me how I was and when I looked up from beneath my cap, he absolutely shat. I said ‘How are you?’ and he said nothing. He was speechless. I walked away and then he yelled out ‘How do you think I am?’ - whatever that means.

On public abuse: After the Green fight I had people messaging me on Facebook saying they hoped I died of AIDS because they had paid $30 for a pay-for-view fight and didn’t get to see two guys tear other’s heads off.

On regrets: Green got what he deserved and so did I. Unfortunately the public didn’t and that’s the hardest thing for me. I can live with what happened but that affects me. I had a lot of fans who backed me through my career and I let them down.

On battling pain: Fighting Tomasz Adamek for a second time was like falling off a 12-story building and having someone tell you to do it again. You had to not only walk to the top — which was the training — but then jump off again knowing the pain you were in for, how hard it was going to be.

On the glory years: It was a crazy time ... I remember sitting in Sylvester Stallone’s house watching Rambo with him, Mark Burnett and Jeff Wald, who created The Contender ... I was pinching myself thinking ‘where am I’.