The great Frank Bruno Myth

Bruno was a much better boxer then must people think and was out boxing both Lewis and Witherspoon before his stamina let him down.

 

I think Bruno's stamina and durability issues were all largely mental.

 

Yep: Bruno's KO% in wins was 95%, while Vitali's was marginally better at 97%. It's also notable that Bruno only went the distance against Oliver McCall (in my opinion, the best chin ever) and Philipp Brown, a durable fighter against whom Bruno was under strict orders to get rounds.

It's not surprising, really, that Tyson was wobbled a bit by Bruno's power. What is impressive is that Tyson, contrary to popular myth, was capable of facing a big strong heavyweight with a good jab, getting hurt, and coming back to win. "Tyson could never deal with adversity" is one of the most vacuous statements you'll hear on here.

 

Bruno could punch. He stopped numerous hard-to-kayo opponents.

 

Big Frank was probably one of the top 5 single-shot punchers of the last 30 years. He wobbled Tyson in the first round and made McCall go into his shell in round 3. Not many fighters can lay claim to those 2 'feats' of power. As someone else stated his stamina and chin problems did seem to be mental rather than physical. If Bruno possessed the personality of say Naseem Hamed he would have been a really dangerous fighter.

 

After Tyson beat Willams in the fight before the Douglass fight very few people were expecting Douglas to win.
In the BBruno fight I saw that Tyson was not moving his head as much as he used to and he was getting hit more than he used to. It seemed clear that someone was going to hit him enough to posibily beat him. Did I think it would be Douglas? No I did not. The events of that night took me by surprise just like it did for pretty much every one else.

 

I personally think the barrage in the first fight with Tyson was deadlier than the second one.

The end was brutal