Would Bruno Have Had More Chance Of Winning A Belt Against The 2000 Onwards Heavy S?

Yes.

Ruiz, Maskaev, Rahman, Peter, Byrd and Haye would be good fights for Bruno.

 

Absolutely.

 

Of course he would esp against the "Champs" of the last few yrs. The Wilders and Joshua's who are novices on the skill level. They are bigger stronger kids fighting big strong kids.

 

In my opinion yes.

 

It's not like the opportunities weren't there in the 80s; he just failed.

He could just as easily get starched by Rahman in the first half of the decade, while up in the cards, and then blown away by Wlad to close the decade.

 

Considering the actual title challenges were against Witherspoon, Tyson and Lewis, it a fair assumption that he wouldn't have faced anyone in the 2000s with the possible exceptions of the 2 Klitschko brothers, that would have presented such a daunting challenge as he faced against Witherspoon,Tyson and Lewis.

 

Bruno was definitely good enough to win a title in most eras. Besides being unfortunate to come along when Tyson and Lewis were around -who he (and most champions) never could have beat, another big factor on Frank was the incredible pressure and high profile he had from his own nation.

It seemed like without the pressure of knowing it was a world title fight Frank might have beaten Witherspoon. Bruno was always game but he walked through anybody who was not a champion.

I don't think anybody outside of the UK can ever really understand how it effected his development. Bruno really was a mainstream public figure from day one. He had the hopes of a nation on him. The stable he came from produced world champions at light weight, welterweight, light middleweight, Flyweight and now they had a "heavyweight hope".

Added to this was the heaping on his shoulders of the image of being an "acceptable black role model" and the dealing with the "sell out" label some of his own community directed toward him. This was the 1980s where there had been riots in Brixton. the media was keen to push an unofficial national black ambassador label upon Frank. You could not move for adverts and appearances on TV, or comedians doing impressions of Bruno in those days.

His fights were overly scrutinised, his opponents would demand more money than they were worth and many imported opponents really arrived to fight him with zero ambition. By comparison even Gerry Cooney could start his career in relative obscurity in a nation of plentiful good level heavyweights.

 

He had two shots in 80s. I was assuming we're talking about the first decade of the 2000s. If you take his whole career, he did get anew easy shot against McCall. It would be easier to take a title if Lewis and McCall were your title shots than Joshua and Fury (bc both are better than McCall was). If he went the hard route, Lewis-Vitali-Wlad-Joshua would be more difficult than what he had.

 

Lewis and Vitali would be locks to beat him in the 2000s. Ditto Tyson and Holmes in the 80s. Holy and Wlad would be clear favorites. He'd have a chance against the rest, but wouldn't necessarily succeed. Each era would be pretty analogous for him.