In his fourth fight, Bramble faced the more experienced, fringe contender Jorge Nina, winning by a disqualification in the second round.
Bramble entered the ring sporting a record of 20 wins and only one loss, with thirteen knockouts, but was a heavy underdog to Mancini, who had recently gone fourteen rounds with the legendary Alexis Argüello, and he was also coming off a successful title defense on January 14, a third-round knockout of two time world champion Bobby Chacon.
Nevertheless, Bramble cut Mancini in round one and went on to become the WBA world Lightweight champion by a fourteenth-round knockout in Buffalo, New York.
After this, The Ring published a cover of Bramble, WBA Jr. Lightweight world champion Rocky Lockridge, and their trainer Lou Duva.
After defeating Edwin Curet by a ten-round decision in a non-title bout, Bramble met Mancini in a rematch on February 16, 1985.
In what marked the debut of the Compubox scoring system, Bramble defeated Mancini by an extremely close but unanimous fifteen-round decision to retain his world title at Reno, Nevada, in front of an HBO Boxing audience.
After Héctor Camacho defeated José Luis Ramírez to claim the WBC title on August 10 of that year, there was widespread talk about a series of fights between Bramble, Camacho and IBF world Lightweight champion Jimmy Paul, to see who would become the unified world champion.
However, in what many saw as a surprise, Bramble lost his title to former WBC lightweight champion Edwin Rosario, who knocked him out in two rounds at Miami.