Boom Boom Mancini vs Livingston Bramble

what always surprised me about these fights is how good Bramble looked and then he stops Crawley and gets demolished by Rosario. I never thought he would be outclassed by Rosario after looking so good the previous 2 1/2 years. And he was in the top 5 p4p in the boxing magazines at the time.

 

:yikes holy **** seriously?! i never thought he was regarded that highly...and i certainly never thought he was THAT good

 

in 1986 after Crawley, he was up there with Hearns,Hagler and Nelson and whoever else was there. I remember him being about 4 in p4p.. So when he lost to Rosario it really was a shock to everyone. Although the morning of the fight, I read in the paper he was a 4-1 favorite to beat Rosario that night. I thought Rosario was going to win.. I just had a feeling Bramble cannot walk forward the way he did and pick off Rosario's punches.

 

KO Magazine, or maybe World Boxing, routinely had Bramble ranked #3 pound-for-pound behind Hagler and Curry around late '85, early '86.

 

livingston bramble had a dog called snake, and a snake called dog.
great fact is that.

 

Seemed awfully expensive for how thick a book it was, so I told myself I'd hold off until it came out in paperback. I do look forward to reading it, though. Always thought highly of Mancini, even if the "experts" thought he was nothing but a glorified clubfighter.

 

it was surprising how high he was rated. In retrospect he was overrated. Can you imagine ranked above Spinks and Hearns in 1985.

 

I always felt Bramble won this clearly, at least 9 rounds to 6, maybe better. A number of rounds were close, but Bramble consistently landed the harder, more damaging punches throughout. Still, Mancini boxed about as well as you could ever expect him to, to his credit.

 

For reasons I can't completely understand, Boom Boom's management steered him to matches with fellow pressure fighters -- Bramble, Bogner (cancelled two or three times), etc.

I think the Frias fight, and later the Chacon fight, gave them the idea that no one could stand toe-to-toe with Boom -- and when looking at those two fights, they should have realized that they were lesser (or in Chacon's case lighter) opposition than the sluggers they did want to fight.

Howard Davis and his team pursued a fight with Mancini to no end -- it would have been big money and high profile, but Mancini's people for some reason chose to go another direction. Too bad, because I think Mancini would have handled him and it would have been a very nice win on his resume.

The book, btw, is fantastic -- same author did books on Joe Namath and Pete Maravich. He's a world-class writer and researcher who took the initiative to track down Kim's family and go to Korea to get their perspective. I highly recommend it, one of the best sports books (much less boxing books) that I have had the pleasure to read.

 

The Mancini book is terrific. Great read.

He was a much better fighter than some give him credit for being. With his style, his prime was never going to last long.

The Bramble vs. Mancini fights were a lot of fun to watch.

 

and interesting fight would have been Ray Mancini vs. Edwin Rosario. Ray's style might have blasted Edwin out in 2 rounds.

 

Rosario would have slaughtered Mancini.