BoxRec

Long term lurker first time poster

As a kid growing up in England in the 80's I, like everybody else, was a big fan of Frank Bruno. Since I got older It seems like there was lots of opponents for one reason or another he never faced. I was wondering about some hypothetical match-ups and what everybody thought.

so what do you think ? Frank Bruno replaces Tyson vs. Berbick for the title in 1986. Who wins, how and why ?

fatcookie wrote:Long term lurker first time poster

As a kid growing up in England in the 80's I, like everybody else, was a big fan of Frank Bruno. Since I got older It seems like there was lots of opponents for one reason or another he never faced. I was wondering about some hypothetical match-ups and what everybody thought.

so what do you think ? Frank Bruno replaces Tyson vs. Berbick for the title in 1986. Who wins, how and why ?

Welcome to the board mate. I think that Bruno loses by late stoppage, but the Bruno who fought Lewis wins with ease.

Berbick would have won IMHO.

Everytime (McCall fight excepted) Frank stepped up in classed, he ended up tired, out of ideas & lolling around on the ropes being save by the ref; the same would have happened against Berbick in 1986.

Berbick by TKO in 9.

Based on the Bruno of the Witherspoon fight and the Berbick of the Thomas fight then I'd favour Berbick late too, but it wasn't impossible that Bruno would starch him early.

These two were actually supposed to fight around 87/88 if memory serves but Berbick pulled out.

Over 10 rounds Frank has a great chance. Over 15 he would probably lose.

Frank never lost a decision so I'd have loved to have seen him in with say a Tubbs who wouldn't KO him but would make him work hard on the offensive.

Flump wrote:Based on the Bruno of the Witherspoon fight and the Berbick of the Thomas fight then I'd favour Berbick late too, but it wasn't impossible that Bruno would starch him early.

These two were actually supposed to fight around 87/88 if memory serves but Berbick pulled out.

If you take the best fights of Berbick and Bruno and several fighters from this era (Thomas, Witherspoon, Page, Tubbs, Dokes etc.) they all looked really good. On the other hand, they all had fights were were they were much worse.

So if you take two of them that never met, it's very hard to say what would have happened.

Berbick who beat Thomas beats Bruno! Berbick was durable, he just happened to defend against a 20 year old who was a Phenomenon, who hit him so hard & so often, more so than Trevor had ever been hit in his career!

Speaking of Thomas-Berbick, I rewatched that fight for the first time in many years recently and it was much better than I remembered it. Most of the last 6 rounds were not that good as both fighters fatigued but the first 5 rounds were crackers as were the last two. Forgotten and under-rated fight.