im only 22 so i wasnt around during the days of leonard and pryor. but i have been told that fight was the mayweather - pac of its day and it just never happen'd can anyone tell me the reasons behind it? seems like a great matchup
Was never as big as Mayweather and Pac,would have been a great fight,Pryor was a beast but Ray was better,I dont think Leonard ducked him but at the same time he wasnt in a rush to fight him..
Ray had a lot of other huge matchups at the time. Pryor wasn't as well known as the other guys until be beat Arguello and by then Ray's eye had taken him out of the game. Would have been awesome though.
Leonard wanted no part of The Hawk. Pryor wasn't a big box office draw, so Leonard essentially didn't fight him because he wasn't a big marketing star. It's funny seeing fighters from this era get lambasted for "avoiding" certain fighters who don't have big followings/fanbases, yet this has been happening with P4P greats since the beginning of boxing. When you're a big time champ, you can call the shots and avoid the risky fights with guys that just don't bring much to the table as far as marketability goes. Easy cop out to get out of those fights from a monetary standpoint. Safe to say Aaron Pryor at his prime was one of the most avoided fighters in the 80's. Nobody wanted anything to do with him at Junior Welter and the divisions around it.
oh while we are on the subject the same friend also mentioned that a documantary had been done and it was found that the "BOTTLE I MIXED" was the alcohol known as shnaps? im not sure where he is getting this info from..
Lewis said it was mixed with peppermint schnapps nothing was found because the miami boxing commision didn't take urine samples after the fight that's why no one really knows what the bottle was actually mixed with probably amphetamines sure as hell not schnapps.
Pryor and Leonard were never in the same weight class. In fact, Pryor was still comfortable at 135 when he moved up to 140 to fight for a title because he was being ducked at 135. By the time Pryor could have moved up to 147, the Fab Four were all 154-160
It's not like SRL was avoiding Pryor in order to face scrubs, though. Duran and Hearns were both more highly regarded than Pryor was at the time; and Kalule was a vastly underrated, undefeated fighter when Leonard moved up in weight to face him. Could do a lot worse than the line up that SRL faced from 1979-82.