Boxing: Why Bruno's return does not ring true

Your career's behind you! Oh no it isn't, says Frank. Oh yes it is, says McGuigan

Frank Bruno's proposed comeback is the talking point of boxing. But that is all it is ever likely to be. Just talk. A fight with Audley Harrison won't happen, despite the noises off from pugilism's panto-land.

Doubtless Bruno copped a nice little earner for giving a Sunday tabloid one of his famed "exclusives", but the big earner, in which he envisages splitting a £10 million purse with Harrison this summer, remains as much a fantasy as the plots of any of the dozen pantomimes he has played in since swapping gumshield for greasepaint.

"The doctors tell me I could go blind if I ever fight again," he is on record as saying when he formally retired following a second operation on a retina he now claims was torn rather than detached. But as the warning was issued by Professor David McLeod, one of Britain's leading eye surgeons, the British Boxing Board of Control know they dare not risk flying in the face of such expert medical opinion if presented with an application to relicense the 41-year-old former holder of the World Boxing Council heavyweight title.

Appropriately enough, Bruno has spent much of the week talking up the fight. But perhaps instead of talking he should do a bit of listening, not least to another former world champion, Barry McGuigan.

McGuigan professes himself "disappointed but not altogether surprised" by Bruno's bid to revive his career, and believes he would be the perfect beneficiary for a new counselling scheme for retired fighters McGuigan is setting up through the British Boxers' Association. "I'd be happy to talk with him about this. We are hoping to involve a number of leading psychologists who are specialists in this area.

"I've read all about how his divorce has supposedly cost him £5 million, but in Frank's case I really don't think it's about money. It is about ego, and ego is worse than a drug.

"One of the biggest problems boxers face, especially former champions, is fitting back into society as a normal Joe once their careers are over. It's almost impossible, especially if you've reached the sort of dizzy heights that Frank did. It's not just boxers. It applies to a lot of sportsmen, particularly footballers, who can't cope with not getting the attention they had when they were always in the public eye. They can't accept a return to relative normality."

Yet McGuigan himself did, and has managed to stay retired for 14 years. At 42 he is a year older than Bruno. "I won't pretend that I didn't have an ego. We all have egos. But I have a very happy family life which has helped me keep my feet on the ground. I'm just another person in the house. In fact, with four teenagers around I'm almost a subordinate. Also, I'm very lucky that I was able to move into the media and articulate my thoughts.

"But coming back to boxing is not the way for Frank to go. He's had eye problems in the past, although in many cases the retina is stronger after laser surgery. He's certainly kept himself very fit. He trains every day and I know he's in great shape because I met him a couple of months ago, shook his hand and grabbed him by the bicep. It was like a rock.

"He's certainly as fit as a flea, but being physically fit and fighting fit are two different things. The chances are he'd need two or three fights before meeting Harrison, and the question is whether he would want them."

Bruno has been badgering promoter Frank Warren about setting up a one-off with Harrison for weeks. Harrison says he is up for it but on his own terms, and in his own time. Bruno, frequently seen disc jockeying in northern night clubs these days, and still reckoned to be worth at least £10 million even after the divorce settlement, believes the fight would help recapture his former status as British boxing's principal boy.

It was after one his provincial pantomime performances four years ago (he usually plays a rather robotic Ringmaster in Goldilocks And The Three Bears) that I asked Bruno whether he would ever contemplate boxing again. "Not if I can help it," he guffawed. "Hee hee!"

Now it seems he can't help himself. Harrison may lack Bruno's clout, but not his charisma. When Harrison won his Olympic title and turned pro, the man who was once the nation's favourite fighter suddenly was no longer centre stage.

It must irk Bruno when he turns on the TV and sees Harrison sitting in the pundits' pews he once occupied regularly on programmes such as They Think It's all Over and A Question Of Sport.

Perhaps they should invent a new TV game for him, called "I'm a celebrity, get me back in there". Hee hee! Know what I mean?