HOLDING ON : 50,000 British Fans Brave the Weather to Cheer for Bruno in the Wee Hours

Thousands of Britons, defying snow and driving rain, swarmed into closed-circuit venues in the early-morning hours here Sunday to cheer on Frank Bruno in his unsuccessful world heavyweight boxing title fight against Mike Tyson.

Promoters said more than 50,000 fans watched the fight at 28 movie houses, clubs and theaters from Glasgow, Scotland, to Brighton on England’s south coast.

Live television broadcast of the fight from Las Vegas was available only to subscribers of Sky Channel, a month-old satellite TV network. Most British fight fans who wanted to see the action live were forced to leave their homes in the middle of a wintry night and travel to a closed-circuit venue.

At the Palladium theater in central London, a capacity crowd of 2,400 people watched the fight. Fans in the famed concert hall, with its low lights, velvet seats and elegant chandeliers, erupted every time Bruno’s name was mentioned in the leadup to the contest.

When Bruno entered the ring at the Las Vegas Hilton at 3:30 a.m. British time, the atmosphere in the 86-year-old theater reached fever pitch.

Every punch Bruno threw brought a roar of approval, especially at the end of the first round, when the crowd was on its feet.

By the end of the fight, in the fifth round, the crowd rose to its feet again, giving Bruno resounding applause as he took punch after punch before referee Richard Steele stepped in to stop the bout and end Bruno’s hopes of becoming Britain’s first heavyweight champion this century.