Famous boxers who were heavy drinkers during their careers

I'm particularly fond of this Mickey Walker story.

He had a scheduled fight against a Heavyweight named Paul Swiderski. He mistakingly thought the fight had been called off and went straight to the bottle. He was a mess when he got in the Ring, stumbling in his way there, and got dropped 7 times in the first 2 rounds. Then, his manager delibirataly pulled a fuse in the stadium and all the lights went out. Walker managed to sober up before the lights were back on, and proceeded to drop Swiderski 16 times, winning the fight.

 

Leon Spinks is the first guy that comes to mind because I grew up hearing the stories being from St Louis. He had a rep for being an absolute destroyer when he was young and there are old boxing guys that I know that saw him as an amateur that swear he was the most talented fighter they ever saw. He best the crap out of Michael Dokes more than once in the amateurs and beat Sixto Sioria of Cuba who was the favorite to win gold in 76'. It's when he turned pro that the wheels fell off with substance abuse and he never came close to being the fighter that he could have been. Aside from is drinking and drug use he was known for sparring hard and without head gear which no doubt lead to his early decline and CTE.

At the end of the day, he was an Olympic gold medalist and lineal world heavyweight champion. Not bad for a guy that grew up in extreme poverty in one of the roughest places in the country.

 

Didn't Jake Lamotta like a wee drink or two?

 

Kelly Pavlik is a notable one.

 

Basically ruined his career............I follow him on IG, he looks to have cleaned up and settled into the coaching niche quite well.

 

From what I understand, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr enjoyed his beer drinking quite a bit in between fights.

 

I also saw him on Joe Rogan's podcast not too long ago and he seems to have done well for himself over the years. Glad to see he's doing good and staying out of trouble.

 

Ricardo Mayorga drank AND smoked cigars during his career. I can only imagine how much better of a fighter he could have been if he stayed away from them and was more disciplined.

 

Mando Ramos
Maxie Rosenbloom
Bernard 'Superbad' Mays
Gustavo Ballas

 

Benny Lynch. Dead at 33.

 

Bernard "Superman" Mays. The best Kronk fighter nobody has heard of. Also dead at 33.

 

Both Chris and Kevin Finnegan liked a Guiness or two

 

Hi Noel.
I can attest to that, on the plane over to Vegas to see the Minter/Atourfermo fight, just before take off Kevin staggered on carrying what I can only describe as a small round fishing net, inside the net was about 12/15 cans of cold Guinness, which he preceded to drink during the some 12 hour journey, needless to say, when he departed the plane in Vegas, he was very, very, drunk, a nice drunk mind you, prob was the flight home, where he kept on pestering Minter for a title fight, again he was drunk, obvs Minter said he would indeed give him a title fight in the near future, just to have some peace, yes Kevin liked a drink for sure.
Have more that trip, but the wife has just come back from shopping, and is calling me to help with the bags, so will get back in due course.
stay safe buddy, chat soon.

 

Thanks for that Mike,look forward to the rest of the story