Hashim Rahman Vs Frank Bruno??

Lewis was more experienced at that point. Bruno never rose to the occasion.

Rahman is going in the books with a better career than Bruno. That Lewis win is his, not Bruno's. Bruno should've pulled it out when he had an out of shape champion in front of him (who was worse than Lewis), but he got stopped.

 

I suppose inevitably anyone picking Rahman as "a level above Bruno" does have to pretend Oleg Maskaev was 10 times better than he actually was, since Rahman went 0-2 against him (2 KO losses).
So I won't get dragged further down that road.

 

Ok, cool.
Forget the hypothetical "Bruno in 2001 South Africa", it's irrelevant.

Everyone who beat Bruno would have beat Rahman, by the way.

 

Bruno got knocked out by just about every solid opponent he fought. The guy nearly came apart at the seams against Jumbo freaking Cummings. He clearly lacked something in the mental department too. Rahman for his part had more mental toughness and resilience than Bruno which counts for a lot, esp at HW.

 

Lewis beat Bruno, pal.

 

His mental toughness failed him against Maskaev, twice.

 

And Lewis did beat Rahman.

 

I think it's pretty close to a 50-50 fight and I see arguments for both sides, but I think Bruno could overwhelm Rahman in the first 6 or 7 rounds, because he does have the power to knock Rahman out and he did tend to fight well for a few rounds and have good fighters like Witherspoon and Lewis on the end of his jab for significant spells.

In summary, I agree Bruno was crap.
But Rahman was crap too.

Maskaev, of couse, was double-crap. Anyone who loses to Lance Whitaker and Corey "T Rex" Sanders AND Kirk Johnson, all by stoppage, in his prime, is very crap.

While I'm at it, Lennox Lewis wasn't as great as people say he was either.

 

I have a feeling Man_Machine is almost tempted to like my post above, up until the last line.

 

And Rahman beat Lewis.

 

Well McCall was basically the end of Bruno's resume at the elite level.

Even if Lewis was Ramhan's only good win, which he was not, it would be all that he needed to put him well ahead of Bruno.

When a title becomes vacant, the two top contenders fight for it.

That is how it has always been

Barret at that point, was better than anybody on Bruno's win ledger, apart from McCall.

You have absolutely no grounds for assuming that.

Bruno avoided contenders of this class like the plague.

He only fought men who were much weaker, or men who were stronger but had a belt, who almost invariably bet him.

There is no reason to think that he would be consistent against this kind of contender, and there are good reasons to assume that he would not have been.

The version of Witherspoon that Bruno faces, was overweigh and getting arrested for smoking mamajuana.

He was very ready to be taken.

The version of Lewis that Bruno faced, was worse than the version that Ramhan beat.

Bruno wasn't just losing to the great champions of that era, he was also losing to the weak and disinterested ones.

 

Whatever you think of Maskaev, he was a going concern when he beat Rahman.

You have kind of said it yourself here.

The name fighters that Bruno beat, were fringe guys or guys outside the top ten, which is why they wee selected.

The opponents on Ramhan's resume that people are trying to tear down, were men ranked in the top ten, or the top five, and men who he was fighting in title eliminators.

simply put, he was fighting and beating a better class of fighter.

I would also suggest to you that Ramhan lost to more name fighters, simply because he was a lot less timid about fighting them.

 

I wouldn't bet a second hand spit bucket on Bruno beating any major contender of that era.

 

Well if Lewis really is Ramhan's only good win, then that is absolutely damning to his legacy!