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Re: This day in boxing. A look back.
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"CUS D’AMATO, the trainer and guru whose master-work was Mike Tyson, had his own much-quoted theory about fear. Control and use it, he taught, and it will become a weapon with which to beat your opponent, but let it get out of control and it will destroy you like a forest fire.
That, I suspect, is what happened in Frank Bruno’s mind on that Saturday night (March 16, 1996) in the hours and minutes before he left his dressing room at the MGM Grand Garden to face the most terrifying and intimidating opponent since Sonny Liston.
Bruno, making his first defence of the WBC heavyweight title, had talked a great fight during the build-up to this hugely-important match which drew a capacity crowd in the 16,000-seat arena and millions more on pay-per-view in America and Britain. But when the time came for him to leave the sanctuary of his changing room and make the long walk into the arena, he did so with the air of a man trudging towards the electric chair.
That is not said lightly, or with a view towards disparaging the immensely likeable and brave Bruno. All fighters, even Tyson, feel fear, and the man who says he doesn’t is a liar. Tyson, famously, was once filmed in tears before an amateur match, with his then-trainer Teddy Atlas having to comfort him and stiffen his resolve. No doubt Tyson, too, had his secret fears about Saturday’s rematch with a man who had hurt and dazed him when they first met seven years ago, but as he has repeatedly and regrettably demonstrated to his cost, he is a naturally violent and abusive man who, paradoxically, feels safest and most at home in the ring, in the only environment in which he is in absolute control of his own destiny.
He turned his fear into a weapon of destruction, using it to fuel the thrilling aggression which carried him to a decisive and dramatic victory in the third, but Bruno (17st 9lbs) allowed himself to be consumed by it. I have rarely seen a man more uneasy about his immediate future, or with less confidence in his own ability to determine it. The inner doubts showed in his face and in his body language and demeanour, which had none of the focused and frightening intensity of Tyson’s.
The fight meant everything to the disgraced and now rehabilitated former champion; it was what had occupied his dreams during the long months and years in jail, and the strength of his emotions showed in the unusually demonstrative nature of his reaction in the minutes after referee Mills Lane had rescued the beaten Bruno 50 seconds into the round.
Tyson (15st 10lbs) spread his arms wide with an expression of unrestrained joy and exultation, before sinking to his knees in the middle of the ring. He then walked across to the beaten and disconsolate loser, kissed him and rubbed his head in a comforting gesture while speaking quietly to him. But as he left the ring, he stopped on the ring apron and yelled in exultation, pointing to the WBC belt around his waist.
It was almost primeval, reminding me of nothing so much as a gorilla beating his chest and bellowing its supremacy in the herd. It was a rare and out-of-character display by a man whose emotions are normally locked away behind an expressionless mask, and it showed how much the victory had meant to him. He had shared Bruno’s doubts and apprehension, but now he felt unbounded relief where Bruno knew only despair....."
the rest here - http://www.boxingnewsonline.net/on-this-day-mike-tyson-ends-the-career-of-frank-bruno-in-las-vegas/
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