IT WAS a (very) different time and a different building, but 29 years ago another heavyweight title fight took place at Wembley Stadium.
Having qualified as a journalist the previous year, Oliver McCall vs Frank Bruno was one of my first reporting assignments for Boxing News as I covered some of the undercard bouts as a 22-year-old staff writer.
Back in those days, Britain’s big men were often dubbed ‘horizontal heavyweights’ and regarded as something of a laughing stock with Lennox Lewis the one to change that narrative for good as he emerged as the dominant heavyweight force at the end of the decade. Now the same level of lampooning might apply to American heavyweights, with no apparent threats on the horizon.
Yet, until Lewis, no-one from these shores had held a world heavyweight title belt since Cornishman Bob Fitzsimmons in 1899. Compare that to today’s embarrassment of riches where Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois, all heavyweight title holders of recent times, are among the best handful of heavies on the planet and 1899-1992 seems a barely believable run of ignominy.
This was Bruno’s fourth crack at a world title and what felt like a big crowd of around 30,000 (compare that to Dubois vs Joshua this weekend!) were more hopeful than expectant that British boxing’s national treasure would finally taste glory after unsuccessful tilts against a savvy Tim Witherspoon (l tko 11), destructive Mike Tyson (l tko 5) and unseasoned Lewis (l tko 7, and where I’d attended as a fan).
LONDON, ENGLAND 19TH JULY 1986: Tim Witherspoon knocks out Frank Bruno in the 11th round as the towel is throne at the World heavyweight boxing title match at Wembley, England. 19th July 1986. (Photo by David Ashdown/Getty Images)
Heavy-handed with a chin forged from Chicago iron, McCall had stunned WBC champ Lewis in two rounds at Wembley Arena 12 months previously but squeaked past a grizzled yet still capable Larry Holmes in his first defence earlier that year.
I was seemingly the only one at Boxing News’ old central London office in Poland Street to fancy a Bruno victory, largely on the basis of stories I’d heard from a US contact who had told me McCall was unravelling outside of the ring with substance and mental health issues. Worse, of course, was to follow for the ‘Atomic Bull’ who often fought ‘on the edge’ and yet was still boxing in good company in his late 40s before retiring after two wins at 54!
I’d grown up with stories of heavyweight titles and these tales were a large part of my upbringing. My Welsh grandmother had told me how she and her parents had huddled around a radio to listen to Tommy Farr’s brave bid against Joe Louis in August 1937 while my father, a boxer as a schoolboy, was a Muhammad Ali idolator from the beginning and regaled me with stories of ‘The Greatest’ from birth. A genuine ‘one-off’, my dad always took great delight in being somewhere he shouldn’t be and kept a hi-vis work jacket and a smart, dark blue blazer in his car so he could bypass ‘security measures’ whenever he fancied it.
Bruno, meanwhile, had long seemed like one of British boxing’s nearly men, like Herol Graham or Colin Jones, without being as gifted or able as those two fighters who had possessed everything bar fortune. “The fate that might’ve found you, but found some other man,” as singer Elliott Smith once observed.
On this night, fate smiled generously on Bruno as, with admirable discipline, he stayed behind a stiff jab with an out-of-sorts McCall almost sleepwalking in pursuit for many rounds, but always carrying that sense of danger given Bruno’s past capitulations. McCall enjoyed better success from the middle rounds as Bruno gassed a bit; however, a furious rally in the final session came too late. When Bruno was announced as the new WBC heavyweight champion, fireworks erupted and tickertape rained down from above, and the crowd celebrated wildly as if the victory resembled a triumph over their own struggles. The impossible in life suddenly felt that bit more possible.
3 SEP 1995: FRANK BRUNO OF GREAT BRITAIN IS LEAD TO THE PRESS CONFERENCE BY DAUGHTER RACHEL WHO DISPLAYS THE WBC WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT BELT THAT BRUNO WON BY DEFEATING OLIVER MCCALL OF THE USA WITH A UNANIMOUS POINTS DECISION. Mandatory Credit: John Gichigi/ALLSPORT
Looking back at the old Sky Sports footage from that night, with a brass band playing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ in tribute, the smooth tones of Ian Darke and Glenn McCrory, and a dreadlocked Nigel Benn in an outlandish suit barely leaving his feet at ringside, it really is British boxing in a time capsule. Better times? Your age may well dictate the answer, but for me this was British boxing’s golden era with Bruno, Lewis, Benn, Naseem Hamed and Chris Eubank in their pomp.
After the tension of the main event had subsided, I watched the remainder of the undercard play out while chatting to future WBO cruiserweight champion Carl Thompson and eventual Boxing News Editor Claude Abrams when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
I turned around to see my dad grinning there at ringside, dressed in a luminous orange steward’s jacket. He had coolly walked through security and gate-crashed the show. It would not be the last time.