T Wenty-Five Years Ago, Frank Bruno Was Seen by Many As a National
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PRESENTS wenty-five years ago, Frank Bruno was seen by many as a national joke. He was also Britain’s most popular sportsman. It’s a paradox that has left American fight fans mystified ever since Bruno – he of the double-breasted suits, lifeguard’s physique and booming right hand – emerged onto the heavyweight scene in the early 1980s. After Bruno willed his way past erratic American Oliver McCall to win the WBC Theavyweight title on Sep 2, 1995, the unique love affair between Britain and its favourite boxing son was cemented. Romance blossomed during a tumultuous decade characterised by Thatcher, AIDS, yuppies, big hair, ‘Coal not Dole’, Duran Duran and the Rubik’s Cube. Alongside the likes of Princess Diana, Boy George, and Roland Rat, Bruno became a legitimate pop icon. Britain’s TRUE national media was a communal affair during the ‘greed era,’ with just four television chan- nels and a handful of tabloid newspapers that, collectively, at their peak, sold over 10 million copies each day. A regular fixture with sky-high Q ratings, Bruno was as much a part of the national furniture as Bruce Forsyth, Del Boy or Freddie Starr. Despite pulverizing defeats to Americans James Smith, Tim Witherspoon, and Mike Ty- BRIT son, Bruno continued to grace plenty of red By Andrew Harrison carpets. A pantomime star, the HP Sauce man, he even had his own Spitting Image puppet. An endearing, sentimental fig- ure, he was viewed through the prism of showbiz rather than sports. But Bruno was born a fighter. A fractious kid from Wandsworth, south Exploring Britain’s London, he left an early gym visit with tears streaming down his cheeks. Undaunted, the teenage colossus progressed to become a national Love Affair with amateur champion at 18. Under the aegis of Terry Lawless, Mickey Duff, Jarvis Astaire, and Mike Barrett – the firm that monopolised big-time boxing in the UK – he raced to 21 FRANK BRUNO consecutive wins with 21 stoppag- es, unbeaten in the pros behind his caber-like left jab and a right that struck like Big Ben. Then, after tangling with some of the best heavyweights of the post- Larry Holmes era, Bruno was left battling with life itself. FRANK BRUNO Above: Bruno’s stoppage wins over Scott LeDoux, above left, and Joe Bugner showcased his strength and punching power to wide audiences. Below: A Above left: Bruno poses with the The Royal Oak Team of (left to right) Frank Black, Terry Lawless, and Jimmy Tibbs. Above right: Bruno with legendary advertisement for Bruno’s fight against Jeff Jordan in 1984. BBC sports commentator Harry Carpenter. Below: Bruno and Muhammad Ali. “You want characters,” Carpenter once told ITV. “You “I remember years ago Tim Smith of the New don’t want plain, ordinary people who’ve never got anything York Times couldn’t work out how Lennox Lewis to say for themselves.” was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the “That’s my sweetie money, ya know, doing that,” Bruno world and Bruno was more popular,” Hall of Fame told The Word presenter Terry Christian in 1995, when boxing journalist Colin Hart told Ringside Seat. asked about his “little comedy bits.” Quizzed about whether “There are many reasons,” he said. “Lewis had this he was more of an entertainer than a fighter, Bruno replied: mid-Atlantic accent and he didn’t sound like one of us. “I’m just a ducker and diver ya know? I do a little bit enter- “Bruno of course was a Londoner. He was taining, a little bit of boxing…” before disarming Christian’s never brash. He was never seen in nightclubs. He acerbic approach with his trusty one-two: a wry quip and was a family man from a very early age. He was that inimitable baritone laugh. very modest; he never boasted about anything. He Britain’s most popular bruisers – Bruno, Henry Cooper didn’t get involved in this trash talking. and Ricky Hatton – were all humble everymen; Jimmy Stew- “He was much maligned by certain boxing art characters with Carry On accents. More importantly, writers as being a manufactured fighter, but he they were all champions of self-deprecation. As British as tea, was a lot better than he was given credit for. You Blackadder, and the stiff upper lip, it’s a self-effacing wit that had to be pretty good to beat Frank Bruno.” eschews ego and downplays success. If American optimism de- “I think people recognized a core niceness about mands you shoot for the moon to land among the stars, Britain the guy – a big loveable geezer,” said Guardian cor- mocks its own prospects of even leaving the launchpad. respondent and author Kevin Mitchell. “You could And Bruno was a master of this bumbling schtick. say he played up to it but he came along at a time “Bruno was manufactured in many ways,” Hart said. “He when we wanted a world heavyweight champion used to say the same thing over and over again. Those quotes as much as we wanted a Wimbledon champion.” he came out with were written for him – mainly by a guy A natural performer, Bruno formed a winning called Norman Giller. That endeared him to the majority of double-act with BBC commentator Harry Carpen- the British public. I’m not talking about fight fans, I’m talk- ter, who relished the sparkle Bruno brought to an ing about the Mums and the Grandmas. otherwise po-faced business. It ushered the big man “He went into pantomime. He didn’t mind laughing at into people’s living rooms and coined his enduring himself.” catchphrase: “You know what I mean, ‘arry?” But not everyone was in on the joke. In Akala’s searing po- FRANK BRUNO Bruno fails in his second attempt to capture a world title, as Mike Tyson batters him on the way to scoring a fifth-round knockout in Las Vegas in Febru- ary 1989. In his previous world title challenge Bruno was stopped in the 11th by Tim Witherspoon. lemic Natives, the rapper and author explains that Bruno was “And can I complain about that? I think he stood for a lot. an ambiguous figure in the black community. Oppressed by Bruno stood for being a family man, being productive and racial inequalities that fuelled the 1981 Brixton riots, some being a positive role model.” black Britons viewed Bruno as the white guy’s black guy. It was a festering sore Lewis targeted in the vicious build- “Bruno wasn’t popular with black folks, I’m just gonna up to their 1993 showdown. As much a battle for British be real,” said boxing pundit Spencer Fearon. “I remember hearts as it was over a green belt, Lewis labelled Bruno an my amateur coach at the time [before Bruno fought McCall] “Uncle Tom.” McCall, too, recycled the same cruel barbs said: ‘If Frank Bruno wins, it will take black people in Britain two years later. back by 50 years because Bruno panders to white authority.’” “They said I wasn’t ‘street’ enough,” Bruno told Mitchell In a climate where black footballers suffered racial abuse for his book Fighting Back. “Ask anyone I grew up with. I and death threats merely for pulling on an England shirt, was very connected to my roots. I know my culture. And I’ve Fearon contends that Bruno had to assume a role of ap- never forgotten where I come from. peasement – a derivative of the social contract Joe Louis was “To be accused of sucking up to the white man – I can’t tell forced to adopt in 1930’s America. you what an insult that is. It goes to the heart of who I am.” To profit from being the nation’s big heavyweight hope, Mitchell contrasts perceptions of Bruno with those of Bruno needed to play an agreeable character that bordered former welterweight king Lloyd Honeyghan, the self-styled on self-parody. In a cruel irony, it won the hearts of the mass- “Ragamuffin Man” who ran with Bruno on their way up: es, but cost him the support he coveted most. “Lloyd was seen as this cool dude, you know, real street guy. “He was of his time,” Fearon continued. “A time of the Frank was never seen as that because Terry Lawless and the Black and White Minstrel Show. A time of Jim Davidson doing guys, they put him in a suit and told him to behave himself his Chalky character – subjects that were profoundly racist. and say the right thing.” “I think Frank Bruno did play the game. And he played As “Land of Hope and Glory” trumpeted across the na- the game so well that it became him. tional stadium after his fairy-tale title win, Bruno was over- “If you look at it, Frank Bruno was a very, very intelligent come. Movingly, he broke down live on air to profess love for man, because he was a multi-millionaire off the back of it, his people and deny he was a “sell-out.” and he just played that marketing-savvy, big, black inoffen- “That is a profound moment in boxing history for the Top: Bruno sends Carl Williams to the canvas on the way to a 10th-round knockout win in Birmingham in 1993. Above: School kids besiege Bruno for an sive person. Brits,” said Fearon. “At that moment there, came major for- autograph, a common sight in the 1980s and ‘90s. FRANK BRUNO Above and below: Two of the judges had Bruno’s fight with Lennox Lewis in Cardiff in 1993 even when Lewis exploded in the seventh round, forcing referee Mickey Vann to stop it.