Tim Witherspoon vs Frank Bruno - (Tons of pre-fight material)

I don`t know the exact attendance figure but I know it was huge Bruno was one of te most beloved sportsmen in British history, but AJ just fought a stand in challenger (Takam) in front of a record crowd (in Britain) for a fight, 70,000!

 

What a shame that jimmy saville is in this video.....

 

Witherspoon was considered out of shape back than by a boxibg media still pining for their 70s hw heyday...The fact is witherspoon was in decent cosmetic shape by todays hw standards...he fought 11 fast paced rounds....

Bruno was a humongous star in 1980s britain..if he hadn't got involved in recreational drugs in the early 2000s ive no doubt he wouod have had a knighthood.this man was beloved by white working class people such as myself in the early 80s he was just the epitomy of english manners and good graces...if AJ is filling 70,000 tgese days frank couod do 120,000...both class acts

 

I'll have a look at that, it'll bring back memories. I was one of the 40 or 50 thousand in attendance that night and oh what an atmosphere it was.

 

The Brits were DESPERATE for a HW champ.

A huge turnout of deluded, patriotic Brits ensured big $$$ for this promotion

Bruno had already been exposed by Bonecrusher Smith.

Tim Witherspoon was battle hardened - he had faced the best in the division.

Even out of shape, he was too much for Bruno.

If Tim had trained hard and came in around 225 lbs, he would have taken Bruno out earlier.

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This experience pi%%ed off Witherspoon.

With HBO money and the huge $$$ from British TV and a huge live gate,
the promoters, HBO and Bruno made a killing. But Witherspoon got a pittance from DK for this fight.

No wonder Witherspoon stopped caring and went out with a wimper in is next fight against Bonecrusher just to get away from DK

It's a shame because Witherspoon was still prime and if he stayed motivated he would have achieved much more and would have been an excellent, competitive opponent for a prime Mike Tyson.

Instead, Witherspoon fought in obscurity for years, but still had enough left to stage a successful comeback in 94-95, almost beating a motivated Ray Mercer.

Meanwhile, the inferior Frank Bruno, because of the desperate hope of the Brits, kept getting chance after chance - and failing, until getting some redemption with his dec. over McCall to finally garner the WBC title.

 

He was way over his best weight....but it didn't matter. Bruno was just not resilent enough, in that fight, or throughout his career.

 

Yeah, he was a class guy. But being the only game in town made his popularity much more than it should have been vis a vis is actual talents.

There were many American HWs better than Bruno at the time, but were getting screwed over by DK.

If Bruno had been American, he would have been oft beaten and forgotten.

 

I remember the fight well was during the summer months when i was on Holliday from high school.The British press were working themselves into a frenzy about how Witherspoon hadn't trained was a fat git etc etc all Frank had to do was turn up and Timmy would be KOED .Witherspoon played along with this rubbish going to Wimbledon to watch the tennis. eating at a bbq chilling out .I remember asking my old chap about the fight as all my mates had Bruno winning easy He turned to me and said that yank took Holmes 15 rnds not long ago he's a different class .So it turned out.

 

Well you put a bit of a dampener on that didn't you! Even if some of didn't think he was going to win we still went out to support him.