Brit Stood Up to Tyson’s Rage With Grit : Bruno Didn’t Fall for Champion’s Act, but He Finally Fell Under the Blows

The attraction of Mike Tyson, as least insofar as it applies to boxing, is how spectacularly he converts his energy into pure menace. In that respect, he is a very efficient machine indeed. He enters the ring bare-chested, without socks, and paces the ring as if to establish his scent. Whatever he does, in an economy of theater, communicates a horror to come. No movement is wasted in his creation of absolute dread.

Yet, Frank Bruno was not cowed. Though he had no reason to be emboldened for this fight--his credentials were thin to start with--he succumbed to his fifth-round knockout with brave dignity.

This cheered a large contingent of his countrymen. Or perhaps it was the other way around. The British in the crowd, massed in the east side of the Hilton Center, made their presence felt with a very impressive British National Anthem. And then cheered Bruno down his long walk to the ring.

Later into combat, even Tyson noted that the cheering strengthened Bruno’s resolve.

“Those 2,000 Englishmen came out here,” he said, “and they pumped him up.”

Tyson admitted that Bruno’s left hook, after which the heavyweight champion’s legs definitely shivered, “was hard, pretty hard. Harder than (Tony) Tucker’s. “ Elsewhere in the fight, Tyson agreed that Bruno’s in-fighting was particularly punishing.

“He’s very strong,” he said of his challenger. The clutching was especially hard to fight out of. “I found I couldn’t get out of it. I thought my head was coming off.”

It was very clear that Bruno was not going to fall down. The most popular bet to make on this fight was whether it would last four rounds or not. The accepted notion was that the ring was little more than a bier; he surely was not the man Michael Spinks was, and Spinks fell in less than one round.

Tyson said that Bruno was a “hot fighter, one who came to fight,” unlike many others who collapsed as much in fear as by beating, and early so as to save their lives.

But Bruno lasted into the fifth round, although that was not pretty. The gamblers in the crowd, probably there were several, loosed a loud cheer when the fourth round ended. It was the night’s big money round.

There was little else to cheer from Bruno’s point of view. It’s one thing to be stalwart, another to take a left hook to the body and then crumple into position to suffer a barrage of punches and see your trainer race down the ring’s apron swinging a white towel.

Still, Bruno revealed a valuable lesson. Perhaps there is a young heavyweight somewhere who will someday use it profitably.

“Mike Tyson is a human being,” Bruno said afterward. “A very young human being. He’s got legs, he bleeds.”

Afterward Bruno talked about a fight plan, although this is not something a prospect should necessarily adopt.

“I was trying to make him miss,” he said, “to wear him out.” It was Bruno’s belief that the eight-month layoff, a turbulent time for the champion, would have an effect on his stamina.

Tyson agreed that he was not in the kind of shape he would have liked to have been, but he still thought it funny that Bruno would count on him getting tired. In the press conference, Tyson did a nice British accent in mimicking Bruno’s pre-fight dream: “It’s the peak time to beat Mike Tyson.”

Bruno, who was red-nosed by the first round, complained mildly that Tyson did not fight with much concern for the sweet science. “There were a couple of head movements, a couple of elbows,” he said. But always the British gentleman quickly added, “I’m not complaining, it’s cricket.”

The closest he did come to complaining was when he said that the layoff, caused by Tyson’s broken hand in a street fight, was not his own fault but Mike’s. Tyson, who sometimes appears disinterested in press conferences, came alive: “That was Mitch Green’s fault!” he blurted.

Bruno seemed to be somewhat mystified by what happened when they finally did meet. The first knockdown, coming in the first 20 seconds of the first furious round, “shocked me more than hurt me,” Bruno said. There had been nothing in his experience to prepare him for the force of the blow. “I felt the punches very well,” he said with the British gift for understatement.

He seemed proud to have shaken Tyson in the first round but had no illusions about what happened. “I had him in trouble, he had me in trouble.” He seemed glad it was over.

You may remember the fight by this picture, Tyson rocking him against the ropes with unanswered punches, handler Terry Lawless rushing to save his fighter and referee Richard Steele wrestling the bundled menace away from his prey. Say what you will about technique, but Tyson converts his energy 100%, no wasted by-products, directly into forceful harm. It accounts for his morbid attraction.

Bruno’s bravery, in the end, was no match for this killing machine. And so when somebody asked Bruno if he thought the fight had been stopped prematurely, you only had to nod at his answer. “Not really,” he said.