30 years ago today: Roger Lee Trust "Black Mamba" Mayweather vs. Livingstone "Coconut Head" Bramble

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At this juncture going by the name Ras-I Alujah, the man who made his bones twice conquering Boom-Boom Mancini around the same time Mayweather beat Serrano had gone from champ to journeyman and then in an uncommon renaissance back to contender. True, he was coming off two defeats and seven in his last eleven outings, but some of those decisions were unlucky (including his 1991 war against Oba Carr) this match-up between contemporary umpteen-miles-of-bad-road veterans was classified as pick 'em. Bramble out-threw and out-landed Mayweather in the 1st, but started to ship big punishment in the second. Bramble would continue to post impressive numbers on the stat line, but the damaging and effective blows were piling up for the less hirsute relic of the Big Hair decade. Mayweather had taken command of even the punch counts by the fourth, and sent Bramble flying onto the seat of his pants midway through. Bramble mightn't have been hit like that since Chapo Rosario in '86. To his credit, he saw out the round, and even answered the bell for the next despite increasingly grotesque swelling around his eye from Mayweather's punches. His chief second did come to his rescue, albeit belatedly - and in awkward fashion, breaching the protocol of the ring. Kind of stupid that it went down in the books as "disqualification", as this just needlessly drags Mayweather's kayo ratio down. If this were officially a TKO, as it ought to be, Roger's legacy would be a nice round 50% - and not this unsatisfying 48.61 garbage. You seriously couldn't just throw in a white towel, Janks?


The above write up from my in memoriam thread on Mayweather from 2020:
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/roger-lee-trust-the-black-mamba-mayweather.646291

...and here's my thread on Bramble made five years earlier:
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/livingstone-hurricane-donna-coconut-head-bramble.542613

 

...it's a type of snake.

Roger Mayweather used it as his boxing nickname before Kobe's balls dropped (and I'm not talking about three pointers)

 

Eerily coincidental funfact, though: both of the Black Mambas happened to pass away within about 7 weeks of each other in early 2020, despite being wildly different ages. Despite that being the very beginning of the pandemic, neither was a Covid death, either (helicopter crash for Bryant, and Mayweather had been slowly dying of diabetes for years).

 

Floyd as in his brother or his nephew? I think it reflects best on Uncle Rog's own resume, personally.

 

Happy early birthday! You're one day after my ex-wife (beware the Ides of March..)

 

In terms of raw offensive talent he was close, and to a lesser extent work ethic. Difference is Rog had lots more vulnerabilities and holes in his game inside the ring that Kobe did on the court.