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Your support makes all the difference.Casting an eye over the parlous state of heavyweight boxing you are persuaded to go along with Mickey Duff's confident assertion that Frank Bruno will challenge for the championship some time next year.
Astonishing as this may seem when set against the batterings Bruno took from Tim Witherspoon and Mike Tyson in two previous title attempts, talk of another opportunity cannot be dismissed as promotional hokum to drum up business for tomorrow's contest against Pierre Coetzer, of South Africa, at Wembley.
The truth, as perceived on both sides of the Atlantic, is that Duff has set up a major coup by persuading the International Boxing Federation to sanction the bout as an official eliminator for their version of the championship.
All things in their time. Hence Duff's discreet insistence that this is not a penultimate step forward for Bruno who has only fought twice, against painfully moderate opposition, since coming out of retirement in November last year after undergoing retinal surgery. 'Of course Frank must first beat Coetzer, but in any case we are not talking about a final eliminator,' he said. 'That would come later.'
In Duff's mind things will begin to fall nicely into place after Evander Holyfield defends against Riddick Bowe in Las Vegas next month, the winner to meet whoever emerges from a final eliminator between Lennox Lewis and Razor Ruddock at Earls Court on 31 October.
As an American observer puts it: 'Once those issues have been resolved who will there be for the champion to fight? Not since the Sixties, before Sonny Liston came along, has the division been so poor. After what Tyson did to him, Bruno wouldn't draw flies over here but in London it would probably be a much different proposition and if it was Holyfield or Bowe they would think it easy money.'
Liston's menace shrivelled in the blinding glare of Muhammad Ali's unique style. Ali lost the championship to politics but regained it twice, most notably from George Foreman in an era that also saw Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Earnie Shavers and eventually Larry Holmes, who effectively ended Ali's career.
Out of fragmentation, the tiresome influence of self-serving adminstrations, the championship was naturally transformed by the arrival of Mike Tyson, his power, speed and belligerence spreading terror throughout the division.
The outlook improved immediately, but in responding to the worst of his instincts Tyson in turmoil lost the championship to James 'Buster' Douglas, and remains in a correctional establishment while lawyers mount an appeal against a conviction for rape.
Douglas reigned only long enough to set a record for room service in Las Vegas, so disgracefully out of shape that he had no chance of retaining the title against Evander Holyfield.
It left boxing with a brave, proficient, superbly conditioned but utterly colourless heavyweight champion who drew bellows of disapproval from the audience in Las Vegas last June when refusing to take even the slightest risk against the 42-year- old Larry Holmes.
The effect of that contest has been far- reaching. Casinos and cable television companies no longer think in multiples of seven figures when bidding for exclusive rights. Significantly, Holyfield versus Bowe is a joint promotion involving three companies.
The void created by Tyson's incarceration is proving hard to fill. There is a problem, too, with the fighters who have grown used to purses out of all proportion to their appeal.
Twenty years ago Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali were each guaranteed dollars 1m for engaging in one of the great contests in boxing history. Holmes who fought Holyfield mostly from memory got five times as much. 'There's no sense to it,' Bobby Goodman, the boxing director at Madison Square Garden in New York, said.
Eddie Futch, still sharp enough in his 81st year to be training the man who is about to challenge Holyfield, believes that Bowe will revitalise the division. 'It is the right time for Riddick,' he said this week.
'Just when you think that things are dead somebody always comes along. Riddick has all the physical equipment he needs to be a good champion, and his attitude has improved enormously otherwise I wouldn't be working with him.
'The most important factor is hand speed. All the best heavyweights had it. Joe Louis, Ali, Frazier and of course, Tyson. Power is fine. Speed is critical.'
Bruno and Coetzer, and for that matter Lewis and Ruddock, cannot be considered in such company. But this is a different time and it satisfies Duff to think of Bruno as being in contention.
Leaving aside Bob Fitzimmons who left Cornwall for Australia as a boy, no Briton has ever held the heavyweight title. The idea that two could meet for it if Lewis goes on to become champion is the stuff of dreams.
Duff more likely calls it business. The business of being in the right place at the right time.
(Photograph omitted)
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