AJ vs Frank Bruno

What's the verdict?

 

Could go either way imo. We all saw the difficulty aj had with wlad jab, and bruno had a terrific one, and more than enough power to put aj to sleep. But then, aj could easily lands a few bomb on that glass jaw and end it early

 

Bruno ahead 9-0 and gets KO'd in the 10th Bonecrusher style

 

All of you that have so far participated in this thread need your heads examined. AJ wins this with absolute ease; fucks Bruno up in 4 rounds. Even 41 year old Wlad is light years better than Bruno was. Nostalgia is a bitch.

 

Yeah, and LL, a much better fighter than AJ, struggled mightily against Bruno. At this point, there is nothing cleat about this fight

 

LL fought in a cautious manner and made the fight harder than it needed to be. Besides LL was inconsistent like that....he blew away Ruddock who Tyson struggled with and struggled with Bruno who Tyson beat with ease. Lewis blew away Botha and Grant and Golota but had hard fights with some mediocre guys. Forget what LL did vs Bruno...AJ is bigger and more aggressive than Lewis and as such would totally fuck Bruno up.

 

Aj didnt totally fucked the 2 best guys he ever fought, and I'm pretty confident in saying that Bruno was a better fighter than Whyte

 

I see this as a styles thing. Whyte wasn't as good overall as Bruno but he was more fluid/dynamic. Bruno hit harder than Whyte and is stronger...but he was a dumb predictable robot that came straight forward with a jab and right hand. Great stiff jab and very powerful right hand...but that's all he had really...and he was slow. Also Bruno tended to win based on his size advantage...against Joshua he'd be virtually dwarfed. Not only is Joshua 4 inches taller and naturally bigger than Bruno but he's also faster and has as much power and has shown a better ability to recover from adversity. He fucks Bruno up.

 

The size difference won't be that vast. In their fights, we saw that Bruno was only a bit smaller than Lewis, while Lewis is pretty much the same size as Vitaly (who is pretty much the same size as AJ)

 

Sly is overrating the ever living fuck outta Joshua.

Bruno has a VERY GOOD chance of stopping Joshua.

Stop Bruno in 4? Yeaaa.... because Joshua is more devastating than Lewis and Tyson.

Christ Almighty AJ is overrated.

 

Yep. He beats a fragile old Wlad in a nice come from behind KO in which he shown a ton of limitations, and now he's the next best thing since sliced bread

 

I'm not overrating anyone; Bruno was shit. Big strong but dumb slow robot. Just because Lewis had trouble with him doesn't mean Joshua would. Ali had trouble with Frazier but Foreman didn't. Stylewise this is a mismatch. Joshua has everything Bruno had but with more speed, more handspeed, more size, more height, better punch recovery better punch repertoire and maybe more power. Just think about it...it's a simple matter of physics.

Don't argue with the Sly on matters of logic!!

 

Klitschko hit harder than Bruno, IMO and even at 41 is a much better fighter than Uncle Frank ever was.

 

I don't believe for a second that 41 year old Wlad hits harder than a prime Bruno.

Bruno was slow and robotic, but guess what... Joshua might be quicker but he's robotic his damn self! And Bruno had a stiffer jab.

There's a very live chance of Bruno stopping Joshua. Klit fight aside, we saw Whyte badly buzz him.

There's no indication of Joshua winning inside of 4, when he's never stopped a fighter worth a damn that quickly.

Unless in you warped mind you think Bruno was inferior to Dominic Breazele.

 

Forget who Joshua did or did not stop within four rounds and just evaluate the styles. Stop thinking in a simplistic a = b+c fashion. Joshua isn't a guy to hang around; he's a high volume aggressive fighter. He goes after guys from the get go regardless of how big and strong they may be. Bruno was not a slick fighter who used the ring and employed good defence, he was a straight forward guy. Bruno would be forced into a firefight that he wouldn't know how to avoid. In a firefight between two punchers with questionable chins the bigger stronger guy with the better punch resistance and punch recuperation wins...and wins early. There were many fighters that were inferior to Frazier that lasted longer than Frazier did against Foreman....and for similar reasons. It's not just about whether one is better or worse than another it's about how the styles match up. Bruno vs Joshua would not last long and Joshua has to be the one favoured to end it early

 

Joshua KO 10.

I think Bruno makes it very hard for him, much like he made it hard for both Mike and Lennox. I think this goes a lot of rounds, mainly due to the PRIDE of both men. It would be a domestic showdown, bragging rights on the line. Both guys will get hurt and will have to face adversity. AJ being the bigger guy, I think will have the advantage due to his recuperative powers.

For the record, I think AJ loses to Tyson and Lewis.

 

I agree. At this point I would have to pick both Tyson and Lewis to beat Joshua

 

You can't take anything Sly says about Bruno seriously. He detests the bloke: he considers him about the worst type of black Englishman imagineable

Bruno hit harder than Wlad. One thing Bruno certainly could do was crack with serious power. And Joshua definitely struggled to deal with Wlad's jab, which was another Bruno strong-point. I could easily see Bruno landing something big and putting AJ out. But Bruno was very, very good at losing his biggest fights. Even when he looked like he might win them, he tended to find a way to lose. He had too much muscle to shift which led to him running out of gas by the mid-late rounds, which usually led to him getting laid out. That's how I now see a fight with AJ going too.

MTF

 

At this point? Unless AJ miraculously develops a great defense, which is doubtful, I'll ALWAYS say he'd get KO'd by Tyson and Lewis.

Christ Almighty, can you image a young Tyson or Lewis landing on AJ the way Wlad did? He wouldn't be a pretty boy anymore.

 

Even if AJ did improve his defense, he still hasn't met anyone that punches with the power and speed that both Tyson and Lewis possessed.

Say what anyone will about Spinks coming into the ring "scared" or whatever, but the fact is that Tyson OVERWHELMED Spinks with his sheer ferocity that accompanied that speed and power. It was just that overwhelming that it undid anything Spinks had planned to do in the ring that night.

That's just what Mike did to guys. They had no answer for it.

 

I can see Lennox laying him out but Joshua is also more than capable of laying out Lewis as well. But of course , one has to pick Lennox over Joshua because Lennox is smarter and has a better defense. Lennox was smart enough to not get drawn into a brawl and could just pick Joshua apart slowly. Tyson vs Joshua is interesting stylistically. Razor Ruddock looked so much bigger than Tyson let alone how Joshua would make him look. Joshua's propensity for warfare would be his undoing against Tyson though. On the inside Tysons shorter faster punches would hit their mark first. If Joshua uses his height and size to smother Tusons attack though he could theoretically win

 

I'd pick Joshua as he has more going for him offensively.

 

You're correct; I detest that big dumb Uncle Tom, but I am also objective when it comes to his abilities.

Wlad has far more snap to his punches than Bruno and they are just as heavy handed. Wlad has more power. Wlad would have put away Bonecrusher Smith if he had hit him with as many punches. Wlad would have badly hurt Lennox if he had hit him with the same punches Bruno hit him with. Bruno's power was more on Vitaly level; thunderous and heavy but with less snap. Bruno definitely had a good jab though, no doubt about it; nasty Foremanesque thudding jab. Would definitely give AJ problems. AJ just has too much speed and punch variety for Bruno. Too much size too. Bruno was essentially Larry Holmes and Ali size, big for those days but small for nowadays. At one point Bruno put on weight and started weighing around 230lbs but he was essentially a 220lb fighter in his prime.

 

Sly, you are a nice chap and I always enjoyed our debates (no homo) so I mean this without malice, but the idea that Vitali hit as hard as Bruno is one of the silliest things I've ever heard.

MTF

 

Who did Bruno knockout that Vitali wouldn't have knocked out?

 

That's a total strawman argument. Bruno knocked people spark out with single punches. His power and his jab were basically his entire story. Vitali was an arm puncher. He has a great KO record but a hell of a lot of his stoppages were accumulation TKO's against overmatched opponents. The one world class opponent he hit (Lewis), he hit him with the best punches he could have possibly thrown and didn't come close to stopping him. And Lewis is often considered to have a decent, but not much more, chin.

Bruno hurt Lewis much more than Vitali did, and he hurt Tyson when he caught him early in their first fight. He also wasted, with single shots, a whole bunch of his overmatched opponents.

I'm no Bruno fan. I'd actually pick Vitali to beat him if they fought. But Bruno definitely, definitely hit harder than him.

MTF

 

You make a good argument MTF, so I'm willing to possibly concede the possibility that Bruno has an edge on Vitali. Truth is Bruno scored more one punch KOs than Vitali.

 

Bruno clearly hit harder than arm-punching Vitaly but I don't see a proof of him being better puncher than Wlad. Wlad is in the class of Lennox in punching sense, it is difficult to find clear evidence on the contrary

 

I wouldn't piut wlad in the same class as lewis when it comes to punching power. He was/is a great puncher, but Lemon was among the best punchers ever

 

Lewis' right hand was a true monster punch. Very few in history better it. Bruno or Wlad in the 'who punches harder' stakes is a fair question, and though I favour Bruno I can see a case for Wlad. Neither is on the level of Lewis, though.

MTF