Frank Bruno - just how good was he?

He was a solid fringe type contender who managed to get his hands on a belt. Wouldn't place him among the elite, but by no means was a lower level fighter. His punching power was as good as most heavyweights we can think of. Always showed up in good shape and as you mentioned had heart.

 

He'd likely beat most of the top contenders who are available right now. There aren't too many big punchers who would impose themselves on him AND be able to take his power in return at the same time.

 

Bruno's chronic self doubts cost him in his career. He almost blew McCall fight, things were that bad. And of course his life fell apart after boxing, so I hope he has got the help he needed.

 

Frank was good. He was too good for journeymen and too good for contenders to want to fight him. This left a short fall in his seasoning process. He was too big a deal to get competative fights like berbick or snipes before fighting for a title.…and like Coony before him it showed. Unlike Cooney though he came back and really was ready for titles but by then he had to come through Tyson- but who was going to beat Tyson!

You had to be great to beat Bruno or at the very least be a world class danger man like bones Smith was (who won about 20 seconds of ten rounds against Frank!) who could knock out Witherspoon and Weaver in one round.

Witherspoon always says his best win was beating Frank. And that was a still green horn version of Frank. After the Witherspoon fight frank was as good as any fighter apart from all time greats.

I could list a whole load of belt holders who were not as good as Frank (bent, Briggs, Moorer, dokes, tubbs, botha, hide, seldon, tate, weaver, coetzee, Rahman, old man Foreman, Mercer, Morrison) but then that does not mean much because I can't think of any real champions who bruno or that bunch would beat either.

About the best anyone can say is Frank would not beat ATG fighters but he would give them the fight of their lives before losing. Nobody beat him easy.

 

Yeah, I think most people will rate him pretty fairly. A basic but well schooled and dedicated professional, far too heavy handed and determined for the 99%, but didn't have the extra piece of the jigsaw to put himself up with the elite.

I suggest you watch the 1st round of his first fight with Tyson. The American commentary on youtube should give you an idea of how glad people were that someone was finally standing up to Tyson and trying to beat him. Despite being wobbled early doors, Frank comes back to tag Tyson and shake him badly.

I think it's a VERY short list of people who would have stood up that Tyson for 5 rounds, outside of the ATG's of course.

 

One of Bruno´s "Faults" was that he did not know how to survive under pressure. When he was hit very hard (it was not that often), he did not react as he should and grab the opponent to get a break, and then get away for a short while.

 

He wasn't very good.
He'd kicked the **** out of David Haye though.

 

Every now and again you get a fighter who ought to be almost unbeatable at first glance, but they have a couple of key ingredients missing which undoes the package. Bruno is a pretty good example of this.

 

Bruno was not ATG material or anything like it, but Frank was a better fighter than a lot belt holders that you might call "good" so saying he wasn't very good is a bit harsh. A tad.

There are not many belt holders I would say "wasnt very good".

Can you list the other belt holders who you think were not very good? I think all of them could fight. They were all better than "bad".

 

Well, yeah, I could name quite a few. I'd start with Bruce Seldon.

 

.... Oliver McCall, Frans Botha, Sam Peter, Hasim Rahman, John Ruiz, Oleg Maskaev .....

 

.... Chris Byrd, James Smith, John Tate ....