I'm sure it's been asked before, but can someone from that side of the pond explain how someone who was so pedestrian became so revered by the British? Was there a certain fight or point in his career where he got over in a big way? Mostly, just why was he so beloved?
he was a puncher. and we hadn't had a heavyweight to get excited about for a while. plus his fights were nationally televised back then. the tyson fights were national events. :yep "get in there frank" :happy
Surely you are being sarcastic. Coetzee wasn't exactly in the title picture at that point in his career.
Bruno was no pedestrian. Tim Witherspoon hit him while he was down , he did it in the UK , but was not disqualified like he should have been. James Smith did legitimately stop him. Tyson twice excessively used elbows against him and others. Bruno is underrated . His stamina and chin were not as bad as the consensus has them. Bruno has more than just a few good wins in his resume if you bother to check.
Genuinely great guy with a hell of a lot of charm. He did pantomime, which is always fun to watch when ur a kid, and some of his quotes are just HILARIOUS! [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qNLd2r5KRo[/ame]
I think that his charisma outside the ring had a lot to do with it. I always felt sorry for Lennox Lewis because he was the real deal and people still loved Bruno more.
Bruno was a very good heavy weight.He would have given the Klits all they could handle.Until he was caught with a good punch by lewis,Bruno had been clearly out boxing him.In fact Bruno except for his Tyson fights,Was usually leading on points wether he was stopped or not .he was a good boxer.A bloody good fighter
Britain loves a working class hero who demonstrates some charisma and Bruno had more than anybody. We also love triers who wear their heart on their sleeve and have to shed blood, sweat and tears to acheive what others may consider to be modest accomplishments. We prefer good losers to bad winners, a lot of the time. We loved Bruno, Benn and Hatton. Some people loved Hamed, though many did not. And we hated Eubank. And of course, this was back when boxing was on terrestrial TV and these fellows were household names. Nowadays I think Amir Khan is the only Brit boxer who 9 out of 10 households would have heard of.
Because back then english boxing was booming and he was the king of it. Gotta remember lewis was an export and never received his credit till the late 90's. Back in 93-96 we had bruno, naz and eubank giving boxing a huge popularity boost over here. You had benn plying his trade overseas and obviously the export doing his thing. So british boxing was in a good place anyway, at the helm we had the gentle giant with the infectious laugh who invariably knocked out of got knocked out. He just kept coming back for more. After beating mccall we all knew he'd found his ceiling and wanted him to retire on top, but not frank, he believed he was the best heavy in the world and went in with a possessed iron mike in one of his most brutal fights. The guy was a role model and he got people believing in english boxing again, compounded with the lower weight successes we had and there's ya answer.
Because he had the public image of a likeable buffoon, a nice young man, gentle, not at all nasty and not too clever. It was a palatable image for 1980s "middle england". Being big, black and built like hercules, his tame non-threatening public persona, booming voice and native London accent went down well with old men and housewives. Yes, he wasn't a particularly good fighter. But they managed to find plenty of bums and has-beens to make him look like a destroyer.