Hashim Rahman Vs Frank Bruno??

Trained in Vegas ? Lewis didn't train anywhere for that fight. It was well known and widely written about at the time.
Lennox was filming during the day and busy being seen in the evenings. Accident waiting to happen.

 

I have to say, I think you're right about that. Five rounds is not really enough time for a lack of conditioning to set in.

 

As far as I am aware, there isn't a standard number of rounds that needs to pass by before a lack of conditioning sets in.

Combine:
- a lack of training (Lewis just didn't train)
- late arrival at altitude
- extreme jet lag
- heaviest career weight (at that time)
- Lewis complacency and overconfidence
- an opponent, who had prepared, came to win and could dig a bit

The perfect storm.

 

Also possible: **** happens when you're fighting someone the calibre of peak Rahman.

 

Yeah I think it was a combination of things. He was obviously sloppy and too casual.

 

The altitude was a big talking point before the fight, as was Lewis's casual attitude and possible complacency regarding Rahman's challenge.
It doesn't take several rounds of boxing for someone to notice the difference, it becomes apparently very quickly.

I'm the last person in the world to make excuses for Lennox Lewis.
But he and Steward arrogantly ignored the received wisdom regarding the altitude, and slacked off training altogether.

I don't take anything away from Rahman, he beat Lewis fair and square no excuses. But it wasn't the best Lewis ever, it was a relatively poor version.
Still, I expected Rahman to repeat the trick in the rematch, OR for Lewis to scrape by with a points win, but Rahman got knocked the **** out, and then went and fought a fairly even fight with a washed-up Holyfield, got headbutted, and a year or two later was outpointed by Ruiz ...... which all amounts to a fairly mediocre level.
In my opinion.

 

The Cummings fight was quite early in his career. He wasn't yet 22, and he'd been professional for about 18 months.

I agree, Bruno wasn't anything special and was carefully protected, manufactured.
And, yes, if he fought more contenders, he probably picks up a few losses.

But occassionally he did have to fight someone at least somewhat 'risky', for example Gerrie Coetzee (who he smashed in 1 round) and the other South African Pierre Coetzer (who'd just given a prime Riddick Bowe a very tough fight). Even Joe Bugner was probably far better in 1987 than the media made out.

The way i see it, the likes of John Ruiz and Oleg Maskaev were exactly the kind of "world title holders" that Bruno would have defeated, they were what he needed in 1980s/'90s, they were a significant downgrade on guys like Witherspoon, nevermind Tyson.

 

All fair enough.

There might be a bit of wiggle room on the Coetze example.

He was fat, inactive and disinterested, but in fairness he was expected to be a test for Bruno.

Obviously no shame in losing to Tyson or Lewis.

Witherspoon is one of the best heavyweight contenders of all time, but the version that Bruno fought was very beatable.

Was Smith really much better than Ruiz or Maskaev?

What damns Bruno in my eyes, is not that he lost to these guys, but that he lost to all of them, as opposed to won some and lost some.

If he had beaten somebody in the Smith class early in his career, I would rate him higher.

 

I have never been entirely sold on the altitude argument, because 5400 feet is not really that high, in the grad scheme of things.

It is slightly higher than the summit of Ben Nevis.

I say this as somebody who has ran 100 mile mountain races, that top out at twice that altitude.

 

Let’s pretend he never lit up Corrie Sanders and Meehan.

Let’s pretend he didn’t get draws that probably should’ve been W’s against Tua and Toney.

Let’s pretend Lewis wasn’t aggressively pursuing Rahman because he had him cut shortly before getting laid out.

 

Lewis was throwing skilled combos like left uppercut to the body, left hook upperstairs.

He was pushing to stop Rahman because he had him cut. Rahman took care of him for that.

It doesn’t match with the altitude bull**** at all.

 

Bruno's career has been subject to some rather odd revisionism, since his retirement.

What makes it particularly perplexing, is that the British public absolutely adored him, but honestly saw him for what he was.

The revisionism, often seems to be coming, from people who are not even British!

Is he a crucial piece of the modern superheavyweight ideology or something?

Even if that is the case, I can't see how myself.

The size queens could sacrifice him, and still leave their core argument untouched.

They would only have to argue that he was crap, as they do with Willard and Carnera!

 

My mater of fact observation, is that you tend to respond to arguments and evidence, by making negative statements about the person making posting them.

These "matter of fact observations", never contain a single piece of data from the real world.

These are not the tactics of a person who is confident about their evidence!

 

Um — yes, they do. The observation in this case was made of you; your sweeping statement and you subsequently ignoring inconvenient data to support that statement - all of which are evident in this thread. This is a matter of fact observation, because your own words are the data point.

Your argument by half-truth hardly puts you in a position to criticize tactics.

I put a case in the very thread you have responded to, which I am satisfied fills the considerable gap left by your selective reasoning. That you have not addressed one single aspect of it in your reply, makes your observation about tactics even more moot.

 

I agree with you that Bruno has been overrated on this forum particularly, in recent years.
And I am British.
But these guys we are comparing him with here are mediocrities too.
Bruno has a good chance against Rahman. .... and against Ruiz, for example.
Anyone who goes 0-2 (twice KO's) against Oleg Maskaev isn't exactly a world-beater.
Like I said in my first post on this thread, Rahman is almost as basic as McCall, but less durable.
Bruno was nothing special but I wasn't surprised at all when he beat McCall.