Frank Bruno defeated Oliver McCall in September of 1995. In July of 1996, McCall was arrested for possession of crack cocaine. You have to wonder whether he might already have been using it when he fourth Bruno.
Even old Joe Louis might have. There’s no guarantee McCall would necessarily improve on Louis’ results over Bivins or Cesar Brion.
So you were just taking a wild stab in the dark. There's never been any talk of McCall being drug affected or impaired around the time of the Bruno fight and he performed at the level he had been. He even came on strongly late.
I wouldn't call it a wild stab in the dark, I would like to think that I am just considering all the possibilities. Presumably McCall started using crack some time before his arrest, unless he was unlucky enough to get caught the first time he used it.
He could have been using crack for ages prior including during his best wins right before McCall. Everything's speculation. He went just fine against Bruno and was performing up to his usual standard.
By that reckoning he beat Lennox Lewis and Larry Holmes back to back as a cokehead. McCall was probably about as good as he was ever going to be in '95.
Just like his claim that Bob Foster knocked out Ernie Terrell. Out and out lies even when film easily exposes this.
Back to original subject, Marciano by KO over Bruno. Size does matter in the ring but not enough for Bruno to overcome Rocky's hammering.
His arrest came nine months after Bruno beat him. This makes me speculate that everything might not have been right outside the ring, in the run up to the Bruno fight. Perhaps I am falling into the trap of confirmation bias on that, but I think that it is fair to consider it.
Rocco gets overpowered and hit the canvas hard several times early, begs the referee to give him one last round before stopping the fight, referee accept and gives him one last chance, Marciano, despite having a horribly swallowen jaw, put the pressure on Frankie, who is on his way to gassing out, and finally manage to stops him.
