DESPITE the anticipation in Britain surrounding a proposed bout with Frank Bruno, Lennox Lewis had plenty of other options. A host of attractive fights that would have done far more to re-establish Lewis’s credibility worldwide were put on the table before the Bruno fight happened. The most financially rewarding of these was a mammoth unification showdown with old Olympic rival Riddick Bowe that would have guaranteed Lewis a minimum of $11m.

Much to Bowe’s chagrin, Lewis’s camp rejected the offer. The snub left Bowe fuming: ‘Lennox Lewis is a pompous, arrogant, phony British punk who is simply afraid to fight me. His cowardly refusal to accept this fight is proof to the world that he is only a pretender to the throne.’

Before this, defences against Tommy Morrison, the new WBO title-holder, and former undisputed champion Evander Holyfield were also mooted. The Morrison fight was put back when the star of Rocky V announced he wanted to cash in on the championship he had won against George Foreman with a couple of easy defences before meeting a fighter as dangerous as Lewis.

When Lewis was then offered a defence against Holyfield, that too was rejected. By now, the Lewis camp felt they owed it to the British public to fight Bruno. The late offer to face Bowe in a rematch of their Olympic final would, for many in Lewis’s position, have been too hard to resist, but by the time it came in Lewis was already contractually obliged to face Bruno at Cardiff Arms Park on 1 October. If Lewis came through, the plan then was to fight Morrison the following March.

The superbly built Bruno had already challenged twice for the world title, getting stopped in a valiant bid for Tim Witherspoon’s WBA crown at Wembley in 1986 before being overpowered by a rusty, out-of-shape Mike Tyson in Las Vegas in 1989. Although one of the hardest punchers in the division and undoubtedly a better boxer than most believed, Bruno had acquired a stigmatic reputation as a gallant loser at the highest level, a fierce competitor let down by questionable stamina and punch resistance.

Out of the ring, Bruno’s spontaneous personality and endearing nature had continued to take his appeal beyond boxing’s narrow confines and won him wider affection in the hearts of the general public.

Despite his own growing acceptance from the British people, it was an affection Lewis could not come close to matching. This factor added an extra edge to the build-up to what was the first world heavyweight championship fight ever to be staged between two Englishmen. It was also reflected in the mixed reception Lewis received when he got into the ring at close to 1am, with the bout ironically delayed to accommodate the needs of American television. HBO, the cable network, was paying $3.5m for the right to show it live.

In a pre-fight segment, HBO’s Jim Lampley said the fight was Britain’s equivalent of Ali– Frazier and Leonard–Hearns, and while that may have been an overly flattering comparison there was no denying the enormity and significance of the event.

Colin Hart, the long-serving boxing writer on The Sun, Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper, said in the same segment: ‘There are certain events in the sporting calendar in this country that are considered national events. There’s Wimbledon tennis fortnight, there’s the Royal Ascot race meeting and there’s the cup final, which is our equivalent to your [America’s] Superbowl. This is on that level.’

With Bruno approaching his 32nd birthday, he was almost four years older than Lewis but he was battle hardened and had lost only to Tyson, Witherspoon and Bonecrusher Smith in 39 fights, with 35 wins inside the distance.

Bruno’s experience, and determination, showed from the start. He dictated most of the early rounds behind his ramrod left jab, hurting a below-par Lewis badly in the third with a big right-hander. Lewis’s own jab brought up a swelling over Bruno’s left eye but it was the challenger who continued to assert himself as the champion struggled to make headway. It wasn’t until the sixth that Bruno, hampered by his damaged eye, started to slow down.

In the seventh, with Bruno again forcing the action, Lewis suddenly awoke from his slumber to turn the fight his way. Peppered by a succession of right uppercuts, a wounded Lewis exploded off the ropes with a huge left hook that shook Bruno to his boots. For Bruno, it was a denouement strikingly similar to his 11th-round collapse against Witherspoon. Lewis followed up, unloading from every angle in a desperate bid to finish it. When referee Mickey Vann stepped in, it wasn’t, as most thought, to stop the fight but to warn Lewis not to hold and hit.

The interruption was academic. Lewis moved in again and immediately landed a pulverising right uppercut that twisted Bruno’s head on his shoulders. After another sickening barrage of blows, a defenceless Bruno, peering submissively out of one eye, was finally rescued. In the space of 30 seconds, Lewis had snatched victory from the jaws of likely defeat – an ability only the greatest champions have.

Although Lewis was still a long way from being able to lay claim to such a grandiose label, he had proved again that he could win when far from his best. ‘Lennox Lewis will be a great champion but he still has a lot to learn,’ Bruno’s brother Michael said in front of the gathered press as the clock ticked deep into the early hours.

Jonathan Rendall of The Independent shared the same sentiment, reflecting: ‘Maybe this experience will do Lewis some good. The serenity of his image is fine, and arrogance is necessary in a champion. There is no doubt that Lewis did his training but the suspicion is that he regarded Bruno’s challenge with a contempt that others would have punished more severely.’

Punishment was coming and it would have serious repercussions. Lewis was now less than a year away from his first crisis but one that would signal the dawn of the most glorious period of his career.