“I WOULD’VE reigned supreme, if it weren’t for Iron Mike Tyson.”

So boldy states Frank Bruno in an upcoming Sky Sports documentary on his historic bid to become the first ever bona fide British world heavyweight champion when he faced Mike Tyson on February 25 1989 at the Las Vegas Hilton Centre.

Older readers will recall the fight as one of the most eagerly anticipated sporting events in years, and even perhaps of the eighties, one offering up a Manichean struggle between a symbol of absolute good in the shape of the most beloved and jovial British heavyweight since Henry Cooper, and in Tyson a man who emitted an aura of such pristine malevolence you would not have been surprised to learn that he routinely basebatted his own reflection for looking at him the wrong way.

This was more than a fight, it was contest between “ought” and “is.” In other words between what the heavyweight champion ought to represent and behave in the eyes of a mainstream society for whom sporting greats are obliged to perpetuate the myth of honest hard work as the foundation stone of success and human worth, and how the heavyweight champion is when emerging from the ghetto shorn of any illusions about life and the hypocrisy of those who declaim against the outlaw while fascinated by his exploits.

Taking place at the fag end of Thatcher’s decade in power, Frank Bruno was a dream come true for a Tory establishment that had effected the near decimation of working-class communities the length and breadth of the land. Surveying this destruction, it was clear that less a statement of fact, Thatcher’s infamous and rebarbative proclamation that there is no such thing as society had been a statement of intent.

And so here we had a young man who ticked every box of Tory ideology there is. Strong, self-made, patriotic, a success in this most individual of sports, Bruno stood as a withering rebuke to lily-livered trade unionists and other believers in collectivist ideas, people held up as a brake on British society’s onward march into the future. 

That he also happened to be black at a time when black communities were chafing against racist policing didn’t hurt either.

Frank Bruno was thus elevated to the status of cultural icon, capturing the nation’s imagination as he commandeered front as well as back-page headlines and became a regular fixture on talk shows, in TV commercials, and even on the boards in panto. 

And just as Ali formed an unlikely and unofficial double act with US sports journalist and broadcaster Howard Cosell, Bruno enjoyed a similar cosy relationship with Cosell’s British equivalent in Harry Carpenter. In time the boxer’s distinct belly laugh, which he let loose at every opportunity in interviews with Carpenter, became a thing in itself, bringing light relief to this brutal business while endearing him further to a mass audience.

In the ring Bruno had knocked over a succession of spoon-fed opponents since turning pro in 1982, a parade of human tomato cans carefully selected by his promoter Micky Duff in conjunction with veteran trainer Terry Lawless, both of whom along with the other partners in what was a cartel, Jarvis Astaire, Mike Barrett and Harry Levene, had British professional boxing by the throat, such was their control.

Even so, by the time he faced Tyson Bruno had two losses on his record. The first was against James “Bonecrusher” Smith at Wembley Arena in 1984, the second two years later against a shopworn Tim Witherspoon, again at Wembley.

When it came to Mike Tyson, belly laughs and cosy relationships with journalists were a foreign land. Walking to the ring, his was a mission to conquer and change the lives of his opponents — though not in a good way.

In his prime in the mid to late eighties, he routinely inflicted an entire ghetto’s worth of pain and violence on any man who would dare get in the way of his rise to the summit of wealth and bling. With frightening hand and foot speed, uncommon lateral movement and fearsome power in both hands, this prodigy of the legendary Cus D’Amato was a machine built and engineered with destruction in mind, a human tank with no reverse gear. 

It was therefore fitting that in his promotional corner loomed Don King, a convicted felon who should have had his suits fitted with a shark fin on the back, such was his rapacious desire to part people with their money — fans, fighters, other promoters, the man didn’t care whom or how.

Against such as this, surely Frank Bruno would be stepping through the ropes to attend his own funeral. 

But then into proceedings was injected the mythology of the doughty British underdog and Dunkirk spirit. This despite the fact that Dunkirk was a resounding military defeat. Scenes of Bruno with his loving wife and doting kids, of them crying as he left before Xmas for training camp, cultivated in the public mind the image of a hero sacrificing all as he prepared to step into a world of pain bent on delivering from evil the greatest prize in sport.

The fight itself was, as expected, an all action affair. From the opening bell Tyson went on the front foot, almost overwhelming Bruno with his intensity, punch variety and angles, forcing the much larger man to throw back as if standing on the edge of a cliff with one eye on the drop.

That Bruno managed to rock Tyson more than once in the first two rounds was testament to the man’s sheer will and the sure knowledge that he was in the fight of his life. Built like a black Hercules, Bruno expended as much energy and strength in holding and grabbing Tyson by the back of the head as he did winging punches.

Tyson would not be denied for long, however, and by the fourth he was finding a home for every second shot he threw, body and head. In the fifth referee Richard Steele was forced to step in to end the matter after Tyson unleashed a right uppercut that almost put Bruno through the ceiling.

In the build-up, Hugh McIlvaney had predicted that Bruno would be “like a labrador at the mercy of a wolverine.” Scotland’s bard of boxing was, as per usual, entirely correct. 

They fought again seven years later in 1996 and it was the closest thing to a public execution you’ll ever witness in a boxing ring. Bruno walked to the ring crossing himself with his eyes moving up to the sky. Unfortunately God had decided to take the night off, and after being punched around another Vegas ring like a rag doll the British pretender succumbed to another vicious Tyson right uppercut, this time in the third round.

It was Bruno’s last appearance in a pair of boxing shorts. Little could he have known that despite his torrid encounters with Tyson his toughest opponent, mental illness, still lay ahead of him.

As for Mike Tyson, the rollercoaster that was his life then rolled on.