Big Frank Part Four: The Battle of Britain

Frank Bruno

Great Britain had been waiting for a world heavyweight champion since Bob Fitzsimmons defeated James J. Corbett in March 1897, only to lose it in his first defence against James J Jeffries in June 1899. Fitzsimmons also failed in his attempt to regain the title from Jeffries in July 1902. Other British challengers like Tommy Farr versus Joe Louis, Don Cockell against Rocky Marciano, Brian London facing Floyd Patterson, Henry Cooper, Joe Bugner and Richard Dunn challenging Muhammad Ali, and Frank Bruno’s two attempts against Tim Witherspoon and Mike Tyson, respectively, all ended in failure.

That all changed when Lennox Lewis was awarded the WBC heavyweight belt in December 1992, after Riddick Bowe, who defeated Evander Holyfield for the undisputed title the month before, refused to face his mandatory challenger Lewis, and elected to dump his green and gold belt into the bin.

Lewis, born in West Ham on 2nd September 1965, moved to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada with his mother as a twelve-year-old. A year later, Lewis was introduced to boxing and represented Canada at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, losing to eventual gold medalist Tyrell Biggs. Lewis won many amateur championships, culminating in winning Gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, stopping Riddick Bowe in the second round.

Many top professional boxing promoters coveted the signature of the Olympic champion, and it was a massive coup by Frank Maloney when he signed Lewis to his stable, with Lewis reverting to his British roots. Unfortunately for Lewis, his Canadian accent made it hard for the majority of the British public to accept him as one of their own, and he never received the popularity and love the fans gave Frank Bruno.

Bruno, who had not fought since the Tyson defeat in February 1989, was behind Lewis in the world heavyweight pecking order when he returned to action with a one-round blowout of Dutchman John Emmen in November 1991. Lewis turned professional in June 1989 and amassed a record of 17-0 (15 KOs) and captured the British and EBU championships during Bruno’s hiatus.

Eight days after Bruno knocked out Jose Ribalta, Lewis added the Commonwealth title to his other domestic championships with a third-round stoppage of Derek Williams on 30th April 1992. The crowd at the Royal Albert Hall began to chant “Broono! Broono!”, letting the Lewis camp know they wanted to see him against the popular Bruno.

Lewis-Bruno was a massive fight and it made sense, but it also made business sense that the contest would be for a world title. Bruno needed to get back into the top ten and his victory over the tough South African Pierre Coetzer, which was sanctioned by the IBF as an eliminator, secured Bruno his ranking. On 31st October 1992, two weeks after Bruno-Coetzer, Lewis faced Donovan ‘Razor’ Ruddock in a final elimination match to determine the WBC’s next top contender for undisputed champion Evander Holyfield.

Ruddock, who had been nineteen rounds with Mike Tyson before he was sentenced to six years in prison for the alleged rape of beauty pageant Desiree Washington, was the favourite to claim the number one spot, but Lewis blasted him out in two rounds, and awaited the winner of Holyfield-Bowe.

When Bowe became the new undisputed heavyweight champion two weeks later, the boxing world waited for the old amateur rivals to settle their Olympic final dispute in the paid ranks. However, Bowe’s manager, Rock Newman, had other plans and preferred to vacate the WBC championship, rather than defend it against Lewis. 

As Lewis had already defeated Ruddock, the WBC awarded Lewis their belt, making him the first British-born heavyweight champion in nearly a century. After successfully defending the belt in Las Vegas with a unanimous decision over mandatory challenger Tony Tucker in May 1993, all eyes were on a historic all-British world heavyweight title contest.

However, in mid 1993, it appeared that Lewis was going to fight WBO champion Tommy Morrison, and Bruno’s team, ranked number five by the other three world governing bodies, were in negotiations to face WBA and IBF champion, Bowe. When Morrison elected to milk his championship before facing Lewis, it opened the door for the Bruno contest.

Lewis, promoted by Frank Maloney and backed financially by Panos Eliades, constantly fell out with Bruno’s vastly experienced manager, Mickey Duff, during negotiations for the fight. Maloney and Duff had often stated their dislike for the other in the past, and it was an arduous task getting the fight over the line, with Maloney and co, along with American outfit Main Events, fronted by Dan Duva, calling the shots for the outdoor extravaganza, set for the early hours of 2nd October 1993 at Cardiff Arms Park, and billed as History in theMaking.

“It wasn’t easy for me to act as the intermediary between the Lewis and Bruno camps,” stated Dan Duva, “but the most important thing was that both camps wanted this fight to happen. It wasn’t just about the personal rivalry between the two fighters and the two camps - everybody felt that the British boxing fans deserved this fight to happen.

“There is a possibility that this is the only time in history that this will happen (two Brits contesting a world heavyweight championship) and there was a real feeling that this fight had to happen.

“I know that Frank had other opportunities - the possibility of a challenge to Riddick Bowe - and I know Lennox had other people he could fight, but I think everybody wanted to be a part of history,” he concluded.

Getting the contest in Wales was seen as a major coup for Team Lewis, rather than the more natural venue of Wembley Stadium, which was owned by Mickey Duff’s associate Jarvis Astaire, and it would have given Bruno, who had only fought outside London (his last fight against Carl Williams in Birmingham), home advantage.

The buildup to the fight was a heated affair. Bruno could not accept the fact that Lewis was British and hated it when he referred to himself as a Londoner, even though he was born in West Ham, and moved to Canada as a pre-adolescent. Bruno also felt the champion was just using the British flag to generate more money for himself, and saw himself as the true Brit. “He’s not British. Nobody cares about Lennox Lewis in Britain. I’m the one who’s famous.”

And later at a press conference, Bruno claimed, “I’m a true Brit,” he then turned to the press. “You don’t need to be Ironsides to know that the man doesn’t live in this country. He’s taking the mickey out of the country.”

Lewis, on the other hand, saw Bruno as a figure of the past and of fun, a man who played stupid, though he was more astute than the image cultivated - this did not impress the champion. This was not the idea of what he thought black pride meant, among other things, acting with dignity. Lewis felt Bruno was the archetypal Uncle Tom his heroes Malcom X and Muhammad Ali would ridicule.

Bruno “blew his top” when he heard what Lewis called him and contacted his lawyer, Henri Brandman to issue him a writ for libel. “Things calmed down after,” said Bruno in his autobiography Fighting Back, “and we withdrew it; but I had to let him know he couldn’t take liberties.”

Lewis also felt Bruno reinforced the American view that all British heavyweights were of the horizontal persuasion. He found this demeaning, and, as he put it, “Bruno’s a national hero for being a loser,” and boasted he would knock Bruno out in three rounds.

Apart from the writ, which was ripped up by Frank Maloney when it was issued to Lewis at the press conference, and the animosity, which was fuelled more by Lewis’s trainer Pepe Correa, who would say things like: “You will eat your feet. I‘m going to take a pillow to ringside for you,” and threw underwear around, there was an underlying respect between the two boxers, with Bruno saying, “Lewis is a sweet, sweet boxer, he’s a nice mover, he’s getting more confident as his fights go on. But whatever Lewis wants to come at me with, I promise you some nuclear warheads in there. Nuclear.”

“Bruno is very strong and if I give him the opportunity at any point in the fight, he can put me in trouble,” said Lewis. “But the only way Frank Bruno wins this fight is if Lennox Lewis lets him. And I definitely don’t intend to let Frank Bruno win this fight - I don’t even intend to let him get warmed up in the fight.”

The hype train was going along nicely, but the boxing experts and the media all expected one outcome - an easy night’s work for Lewis. Bruno was a three-to-one underdog, whilst Lewis was seen as younger, as fit, if not fitter than his challenger, full of the self-confidence that comes with championship status, and possessing the better boxing skills. Though the pundits only gave the challenger a puncher’s chance against the champion, they also felt Bruno was lucky to get a third crack at the title and were not too enamoured by the tough, some felt greedy, talk by the Bruno camp over money. One journalist wrote: “The local brew in Cardiff is not Tetley’s or Whitbread but Brains - and Bruno is about to have his scrambled.”

At thirty-one-years-old, Team Bruno felt this was his last chance at winning the heavyweight title, and the strain was definitely taking its toll on him. The negative press Bruno received irked him, and his behaviour was uncustomary, having a few run-ins with the journalists who backed against him, especially with two from The Daily Star, the tabloid paper that sponsored Lewis. Bruno also banned Boxing Monthly from his training sessions, telling Glyn Leach, the editor of the magazine, “I don’t like what you’ve written about me,” with Leach respecting the fact that Bruno had the decency to call himself and ban the publication, and not get one of his people to do it. 

This did not help Bruno’s public persona, with Frank Keating of The Guardian writing three days before the fight: “Countless British blacks have been wincing at Bruno’s naively well-meaning act as the friendly, gormless bumpkin.”

Despite the backlash from the press, the 25,784 fans in the crowd at Wales’s then home of rugby, Cardiff Arms Park, let the challenger know he was still as popular as ever, getting a rousing ovation when he walked towards the ring decked in a red, white and blue ring robe, with matching trunks that had True Brit emblazoned on the back of them, and a red Welsh rugby beanie hat, as Land of Hope and Glory reverberated through the sound system.

The champion had his fans, but they were not as vocal as Bruno’s, but this didn’t discourage the defending champion, as he opened proceedings brightly with snappy jabs and follow-through right-handers. The challenger kept coming forward, pushing out his own jab and right crosses, which, at first, seemed powerful but slow to find the target, but when Lewis appeared to slip whilst evading a big punch, he seemed to lose confidence.

Where Lewis took the first round unanimously, it was Bruno who was finding his rhythm, while Lewis seemed a little flustered, maybe embarrassed, for allowing himself to be made ungainly against Bruno, swinging and missing with a half-hearted hook at the end of the opener.

Lewis was wrapped in blankets during the minute’s break, protecting him from the cold, wet conditions of the Welsh 1 am start time. There had been a rain clause written into the fight rules that if the bad weather stopped the fight from proceeding after four rounds, they would go to the scorecards.

The champion needed to start the second round fast and establish his authority further, but it was Bruno who took the initiative, pumping his hard jabs in Lewis’s face and backing him up. A right forced the champion to take evasive action, grabbing Bruno from behind, as the challenger detonated two more jabs and a hook, dramatically changing the expression on Lewis’s face. Bruno was doing what the press said he couldn’t; he was getting off quicker than his opponent, and growing more confident. An ugly brawl ensued as Lewis, out of frustration, tied Bruno up and the two rabbit-punched each other until Mickey Van broke them up. The three judges sided with the challenger, evening up the score going into the third round.

Lewis responded at the start of round three, landing well and looking like the superior boxer he was meant to be. The challenger kept his composure and fired a left to the body. The champion backed off, hands dangerously low, as Bruno, showing surprising hand speed as he doubled his heavy jab and caught his man with an overhand right that exploded on his left temple.

The champion was hurt, but the challenger, seemingly a bit too respectful for Lewis, allowed him enough time to recover, before following up with another attack that was smothered.

Bruno tried to take Lewis out, but the champion showed great powers of recovery and managed to survive the round, though his jabs were flicking rather than ramrod as he hardly threw combinations and his feared right hand was inaccurate.

This was corrected in the fourth, as Lewis’s jabs began to flow and the right started to find its mark. The champion even took the ring’s centre, but Bruno had other ideas, getting his jab over Lewis’s low left hand, forcing his man to give ground once more. The defending champion regained the initiative, jabbing and following with poorly delivered rights. It was a close round to score, with two judges favouring Bruno, who was starting to get a nasty swelling around his left eye. 

Lewis looked the sharper in the fifth, but Bruno was not to be denied, though he ate a few more lefts and rights from the champion and was struggling with his vision, he did enough to get the nod from two of the judges and inflicted a swelling around his left eye, with traces of blood from a small nick in the same area.

The champion’s confidence had fully returned in the sixth, opening the round impressively. His jabs, missing for most of the night, started to rap into Bruno’s face. A hard, unconventional left slammed into the challenger’s chiselled torso, and Bruno started to look less of a threat. Sensing this, the champion threw a wild, but vicious left-right combination, backing his man up and stopping him from working with his busy left lead.

The fight was finally under the champion's spell, as he contained Bruno’s aggression, though one judge voted for the challenger. Going into the halfway mark of the contest, Welsh judge Adrian Morgan had given every round from the second to Bruno, scoring it 59-55, whilst American judges Tony Costellano and Jerry Roth had the fight even at 57 apiece, meaning if the rain clause stopped proceedings, Lewis would retain the title by a majority draw.

The seventh started at a frantic pace as both fighters traded jabs. Lewis was then backed up to the ropes and Bruno, looking to take his chance, went for broke. Lewis swung a wild, some would argue desperate, left hook, which detonated on the challenger’s unprotected jaw.

Bruno’s body stiffened and the punch, in effect, was a fight finisher. Lewis, sensing blood, unleashed a barrage of unanswered punches, with Bruno helpless on the ropes. Lewis and the crowd thought Mickey Vann had stopped the fight, but he only stopped it to berate Lewis for teeing up Bruno with his left so he could unleash a right, and allowed Bruno to take some more unnecessary punishment. “I don’t know why Vann did that,” Lewis would say later. “He said I was holding but I wasn’t. I was just throwing my right. I was upset and I just wanted him to hurry up so that I could go and take Bruno out because I realised he was still groggy-eyed and not even putting his hands up, and that the ropes were holding him up. I just wanted to take his head off and I thought all it would take was one more right.”

The challenger had still not recovered by the time Vann allowed the action to continue and Lewis attacked until Bruno’s trainer, George Francis, climbed the ring apron with the towel after 72 seconds of the round.

Lewis improved his record to 24-0 (21 KOs) as Bruno slipped to 36-4 (35 KOs). The familiar sounds of retirement increased in volume, especially from his mother, Lynette, “I don’t want Franklin to take any more punishment. He has taken enough already. I know he has this burning ambition to bring home the belt, but it is so obvious that the Good Lord does not want it to be. It would be best if from now on he concentrated on taking care of his wife and my two granddaughters.”

Even the press was in agreement, but Bruno had other ideas.

All the best fight fans

Lea

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