I agree on the treading carefully part. But frankly I don't see any of these guys as being significantly more accomplished than Frank Bruno if even at all, with the possible exception of Rex Layne, and even that's only marginal. This is just going by resume which you often prefer to gauge fighters with, and doesn't even take into account physical attributes or styles. None of those men had the type of skills, power or physicality that forced a stoppage on Bruno. Best any of them could do was outbox him to a decision and given his height, reach, piston like jab and power to really hurt guys, I'm not entirely confident they could pull it off. Wearing him down late to a stoppage is a possibility but again it generally took quite a few rounds and lot's of punishment from big hitters to make that happen. I just don't see the loop hole anywhere on the surface.
muscle mass also decreases with age as well as discontinued training. While some of those guys may have indeed juiced, I don't think Bruno did, unless perhaps he did it later in his career. He was always a pretty buffed guy who devoted himself to training and may have been blessed with good DNA besides.
Bruno didn't have a reliable chin or good stamina, but he could box and punch. If we are talking 15 rounds, the odds of his opponents go up. Layne could pull off an upset if he lands his right hand. LaStarza has a chance to win if Bruno gasses, or make a decent showing in a points loss. Matthews ( misspelled ) is too small, and C0ckell simply not good enough. But these aren't Rocky's best opponents. Best guess 3-1 for Bruno.
Who did Layne ko to demonstrate this great power? Bruno was only stopped by big punchers, Layne was on the floor many times, who says he had a better chin than Bruno? Do you think Ezzard Charles would floor Bruno multiple times ? Marciano is not the subject of this thread. The distance would not be a factor because Layne would not hear the 10round bell.
A better way for me to sum up my position is to simply say, I don't see Frank Bruno losing to light hitting cruiser weights. Hope that clears it up.
Ok. You consider Rex Layne to be light hitting? Here is what the late Joe Rein(Aka John Garfield) had to say about rex layne. "Throw out the record book on Layne, he was a rugged brawler with a quick, very heavy right. As he got shopworn and discouraged, more and more, he got outworked and beaten down. But, when he first raged out of Utah -- full of **** and vinegar -- he'd have been a handful for anybody. He could crack with that right."
The statistics say otherwise, despite the opinions of Mr Garfield. Discount his draws and defeats, and his 34 KO's out of 50 wins is 68%. Impressive, possibly, but big banger stats? Nope.
I don't think Spoon was a huge hitter, like Layne a good looping right hand. I'm not convinced it would take much more than that to have an exhausted Bruno backing up and fall into the ropes.