Dillian Whyte ‘WON’T KNOW’ which Tyson Fury will turn up, believes Frank Bruno

The loudest of Frank Bruno’s marvellous guffaws as he weighed-in on the Fury v Whyte rumble came when he was asked a supplementary question after saying that the Gypsy King ‘would have been a huge challenge for all the other heavyweights in my time.’

Does that include the other Tyson whose name is etched deep in the legend of the prize-ring?

Big Frank laughed fit to burst as he threw back his head, rolled his eyes and said: ‘Ooooh, no, no, no. Not Mike. He doesn’t belong to an era. He was from another world. Something else, man. In his prime he would have beaten every heavyweight. The biggest puncher ever.’

Frank Bruno says Dillian Whyte faces a tough task against Tyson Fury as he is unpredictable

Bruno stresses that it will be difficult for Whyte to anticipate Fury’s approach to the fight

To the latter, Bru-nooo can testify from painful experience. Big Frank was knocked out twice by Mike Tyson in world heavyweight championship fights. The second time in his first defence of the WBC belt he had finally won by beating Oliver McCall after three failed world title attempts.

McCall had achieved his own lifelong dream by springing a shock knock-out of Lennox Lewis, the like of which is Dillian Whyte’s best hope of defying the 6-1 odds against him upsetting Tyson Fury in front of a UK all-time record 94,000 crowd at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night.

Bruno says he has seen a huge difference in Fury, describing him as ‘a fearsome puncher’

‘At last,’ says Bruno. ‘The domestic world heavyweight fight we’ve all been begging for years to see.’

Twenty-nine years, to be exact. Since the night in Cardiff when he was ahead on the scorecards and seemingly on his way to inflicting a massive upset of his own, only to be flattened by a Hail Mary howitzer from Lewis in the seventh round. ‘That’s the excitement of heavyweight boxing,’ says Bruno. ‘One punch can change everything.’

Can Whyte deliver that bolt from the deep blue of a spring night in north London? Bruno would give him more of a chance if Fury had not transformed himself of late from a remarkably agile boxing maestro into a brutal terminator.

‘I’ve seen a huge difference in Tyson recently,’ says Bruno. ‘He has gone from someone who was tall, gangly and awkward to a fearsome puncher. All in the space of a couple of fights.’

 Bruno insisted that no fighter would be a match for the legendary Mike Tyson

Those battles were the second and third in Fury’s epic trilogy with Deontay Wilder, in which he kept being floored the by the American’s awesome power then kept keep bouncing up to inflict amazing knock-outs.

Says Bruno: ‘I knew he had those performances in him. Now he’s bulked up to 19-20 stones we’ve seen what he can do to his opponents. Wilder was on the 16-17 stones mark and Tyson dominated him. Only in this division can you get such a huge weight advantage. If you can use it, that sure is useful. If he uses his height (6ft 9in) to get over Whyte and then uses that weight to press down on him, it will be very difficult for Dillian to fight effectively against him.’

Bruno credits Fury’s change in style to the Kronk effect rooted in the fabled gym of that name in Detroit. That was where the legendary Emanuel Steward trained great champions such as Lewis and Thomas Hearns to go for KOs ‘rather than risk leaving the decision in the hands of the judges.’

Fury’s experience could be key to deciding the outcome of the fight according to Bruno

Fury experienced a few weeks of that method as a young visitor to America. Come Wilder, he brought in the great man’s nephew SugarHill Steward, a chip of the old knock-out block, as head trainer.

‘Being a Kronk fighter meant a lot in my day.,’ says Bruno. ‘ Whenever any boxers from Britain went up against Kronk fighters they knew they were going in against someone fit, dangerous, on top of his game and hitting very, very hard. That gym is famous for creating tough fighters, hard men who are very difficult to beat.

‘It is even trickier for Dillian because he won’t know which Tyson will be coming into the ring this time. He can box orthodox or southpaw. He can go on the front foot or the back foot. He could walk Dillian down and go for the finish. Or he might go back to his old stick and move, knowing that if he doesn’t keep clear of Whyte’s bombs he could be in danger. He has this ability to adapt to whatever is in front of him.

‘The size of the crowd won’t worry him. He’s won over loads of fans, turned them on with his charisma. Walking out in an arena or a stadium is a mental thing. In the ring the fight doesn’t change. You have to programme in your head everything you’ve done in training. Not let the crowd, the atmosphere or the surroundings distract you from the job at hand.

‘Listen, everyone gets nervous before any fight. Muhammad Ai got nervous. Even Mike Tyson talked about feeling fear going into a fight. You have to put that aside and get on with it.’

Bruno revealed that he is now okay after recovering from being sectioned

Bruno, like Fury, has overcome far more important anxieties. Big Frank and the Gypsy King found mutual empathy in their well-chronicled struggles with mental health. Chronic depression among their conditions.

Bruno, who has recovered from being sectioned, says: ‘I’m alright now. I’m okay.’ He sees Fury fine, also, saying: ‘He’s fearless.’ Asked to predict the outcome on Saturday night, he says: ‘Fury has more experience which is maybe why I favour him.’

Then he remembers another reason: ‘Tyson doesn’t care about anything. He says he drinks 15 pints in a night, gets up in the morning and goes to the gym to spar all day with three or four tough fighters.

Not recommended but that’s the character he is. And he doesn’t care if you knock him down. Because he always gets up.’

Fury v Whyte will be televised live on BT Sport Box Office on Saturday night.