Frank Bruno - one of the better technicians during the 90's?

I finally re-covered my old copy of the Bruno-McCall fight and seeing it again, i'm surprised at how good a boxer Frank is in a technical sense. Accurate jab, perfect 1-2, 1-1-2's, long left hooks, hooks off the jab and he mixed in a good amount of uppercuts (mainly the right) in there as well. His balance is great too... despite being built like a statue, he rarely seems to get off balance.


His obvious weaknesses are stamina and durability, but he's very hard to outbox, despite the fact that he is very slow. In a way i think he's similar to Sonny Liston, if he had better stamina and a good chin. But he has those heavy fists.


Pressure is his kryptonite, though. All of his beautiful technique went out of the window when Tyson came up so fast with his thudding shots.




One more thing on the McCall fight: if that one lasted as much as one round longer, we'd be talking about McCall-Tyson instead of Bruno-Tyson II.

 

Frank did a good job of holding his own for a while with Lennox Lewis until the horrific end.

 

Bruno was a machine, Frankenstein's... sorry Lawless' monster.

Bruno had below average technique, but had a lot of the mechanics that an excellent fighter needs. Bruno excelled at being taught and programmed, but excellent technique requires a natural ability, which was something Bruno lacked.

That is why when the going got tough, Bruno blew it, the mechanics over heated and the monster fell.

Bruno 4.0; after BrunoI (until Smith); BrunoII (until Whitherspoon) and BrunoIII (until TysonI), was probably overall superior to the three previous models, but he still was more machine than man IMO.

 

Comparing Bruno with Liston for ability is like comparing Sinatra with Johnny Rotten for singing ability. Bruno was a robot, a well schooled one ,but a robot, and I saw a lot of his fights live, when he got tagged it was as though some one pulled the fuse out of his back ,he did not know what to do .Liston was a natural fighter.

 

Bruno had the ever loving **** beaten out of him by his father as a child. He's even remarked that he felt like he was in the ring against his father when he fought the bully that was Tyson.

It wasn't cowardice. That isn't the psychological shortcoming that he had.

 

The opening post is right Chris, but its on a certain level imo, any top level, i mean top level heavy beats him.

 

In his book, he admits he was not naturally gifted..co-ordination wise etc. But he had brute strength, and could bang. He just learnt the boxing fundatmentals to a T, and worked hard.

When you are naturally gifted, as a athlete you make up your own fundamentals. Look at Roy Jones Junior, or Joe Calzaghe..Prince Naseem Hamed...!

 

Yeah that has always been the thing with Bruno, when i was a kid my grandma (yes grandma) used to tell me he's just nasty enough.

I'll work on the getting angry McGrain.

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Haha, likes some sports like. Yeah Bruno gets whacked out by Liston big time, he might land a big right but it pisses Liston off if it doesnt stop him and thats that.

 

Bruno was dead tired and could barely raise his hands at the end of the fight. I think if McCall wanted to win, the TKO could have been his. But Oliver is Oliver and he let Bruno last the distance.

 

About Frank, What can you say. I think he was definitely one of the best managed fighters ever. At the same time, he had more than you can just teach someone. The best since him has been Danny Willliams and I thnk Frank might have rolled over him From before his time I can't see many before beating him, except maybe Bugner on his best night.
Where does he rate?
I haven't included Lennox in this,

 

Bruno was a decent fighter,he just fell apart when he got hit.He could box and was giving Lennox all sorts of trouble for a few rounds.He just always seemed to get tired then hit then stopped in the big fights.Right up to the last bell in the Mccall fight i was expecting a typical Bruno disaster.It was nice to see him take a title because he did work hard and kept coming back after some crushing defeats.His skills are a little underated.