Didn't he do drugs after he retired? Him and the late Alexis Arguello. You can put Sugar Ray Leonard in this category. Before his fight with Terry Norris he had to be given a local anesthetic to mask a rib injury, the commissioner at the time was aware of this fact. He said that it was procedure and he wouldn't mention the anesthetic. Ray continued to say he wanted to be excused, but after the commissioner threatened to draw blood instead of urinalysis Ray conceded.
Monzon regularly smoked and drank. Not that he needed much energy. He simply let his jab control the distance, or his long arms would wrap the other guy up, like an octopus with an attacking shark. Tony Ayala claimed to have been detoxing from heroin before 3 of his early fights. As someone mentioned earlier, Mike and Sammy were hypes as well. I'm not sure about Paulie (the youngest one), but the Ayala boys had been drinking and doing heroin since their pre-teens.
It was the rare fighter 'n trainer that DIDN'T smoke 'n drink in the '30s '40s 'n '50s. A pass-down from the Great John L. Cigar smoke was like London fog in Stillman's Gym. Some guys smoked between rounds of sparring 'n while hittin' bags. Aside from a rubber in his wallet, every kid had a packa cigs rolled up in the sleeve of his T-shirt.
The Hawk went into free fall after the Arguello rematch, and allegedly dropped down to 120 pounds due to cocaine use. Somehow, he went on to beat Furlano and Hinton (the eventual successor to his vacated crown) over the 15 round distance, but he was essentially a rudderless mess with nothing really left to prove by that point. That he actually won his final three fights by knockout and went out a winner at 35 is incredible. He could easily have wound up dead before he chose to conclude his reign.
Jimmy Young commented that during training he had to sweat all that nicotine out. He obvioulsly stopped smoking during training. George Foreman remarked that even moderate drinking when not in training would have been deleterious for a boxer. And don't even believe that Big George was scarfing down cheeseburgers during training. It was broiled fish, lean chicken, vegetables, unsweetened iced tea with lemon for the big fellow.
Not to mention what was in the 'other' bottle a few minutes before stopping Arguello. Very dubious to say the least. Funnily enough, i like Pryor and think he gets a bit of a raw deal by some on here