By Frank Warren
I was sad to hear last week of Frank Bruno's mental health problems resurfacing again.
It was nearly 10 years ago that Big Frank was detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act and being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
His friends said he was recently showing signs of erratic behavior again, but it’s good that he has gone back to hospital to seek help voluntarily.
15 years ago I guided Bruno to his WBC World Heavyweight title win at Wembley Stadium against Oliver McCall in one of my best moments in the sport, but then he lost the title to Mike Tyson in March 1996 and retired.
The big problem is that Bruno still really misses boxing and has found it hard to cope in retirement as Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe experienced with their own well documented personal problems after they hung up the gloves.
Recently Scotland’s former two-time WBO World Featherweight champion Scott Harrison went off the rails again and it can happen in all walks of life, not just boxing.
For Bruno, boxing was his saviour, it’s no secret that he had a troubled childhood and the regimental training camp and tunnel-vision focus towards a fight gave him a direction, although physically he’s still kept himself in great shape but he has struggled to deal with life outside the ring.
He was in Glasgow last month to watch Ricky Burns’ WBO World Super-Featherweight title defence and he is still really popular with the public and they were chanting “Bruno, Bruno” as if he was making a ring entrance for a fight.
Just before his first bout of health problems he wanted to come out of retirement and take on the then unbeaten Olympic champion Audley Harrison. It was never going to happen because of the problems with his eye and having surgery on it and the British Boxing Board of Control wouldn’t have granted him a license.
More recently Bruno was talking about making a comeback to fight Dereck Chisora.
Whereas Bruno can’t fight again, Chisora’s license has been suspended by the Board and can’t fight at the moment on their licensed promotions. Football bad boy Joey Barton, who is well known for his violence on and off the pitch and has even served a jail sentence, is still playing and earning, but Chisora can’t make a living so what does he do now? Does he go and sign on with the other 2.5m unemployed in the country?
I felt that a better way to have dealt with Chisora would have been to give him a very short ban or a hefty fine which would have been a more suitable punishment.
His misdemeanor with Haye, which cannot be condoned, was only criticised by a small minority of sports feature writers, yet the same writers, plus media from all over the world will be covering tomorrow’s Formula One Grand Prix in Bahrain where the event was called off last year because of anti-government protest that left nearly 50 people dead.
I wonder what the reaction would have been if I staged a fight between Chisora and Haye in Bahrain?
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James DeGale has got a tricky test in Denmark tonight against the former WBC World Champion Cristian Sanavia from Italy, which will be shown live on BoxNation.
European super-middleweight champ DeGale puts his title on the line and will need to put on a good performance abroad to keep hold of his belt.
Sanavia has been around a while and has the experience over twelve-fight DeGale, but the Harlesden fighter is younger and hungrier and I expect him to win against his tricky opponent, probably by late stoppage.
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Congratulations to lightweight Josh Taylor and middleweight Anthony Ogogo for making it into the Team GB’s boxing squad this week.
Taylor won in the final qualifying tournament in Turkey to become the first Scottish lightweight boxer since Dick McTaggart - who won silver in 1956 and bronze in 1960 - to go to the games.
Light-heavyweight Callum Smith, who’s brothers Paul, Stephen and Liam are all promoted by me, will have a nervous wait to see if he has a place in the team. He lost to Vatan Huseynli in a close semi final yesterday, but Smith can still qualify if Huseynli wins the final today.
A cracking team for London 2012 includes Anthony Joshua, Andrew Selby, Luke Campbell, Fred Evans and Tom Stalker.
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For the second time in a row American star Brandon Rios failed to make the lightweight limit in a world title fight.
The former WBA World Champion was over the weight for Britain's John Murray in December and was two pounds over for his bout with Richard Abril in Las Vegas last Saturday.
Despite beating Abril on points he wasn't able to win the WBA title which is still vacant and he was fined $45,000 which was 10 percent of his purse - half of that will go to Abril and the other half to the state of Nevada's general fund.
Yet again for $45,000, Rios had a huge and unfair advantage over opponent who trained hard to make the championship weight. It was a double whammy for Abril who was robbed, too, of a victory by a bad decision.
