Aaron Pryor - how good was he or how good could he have been?

Gotta admit I don't know much about him apart from the Alexis Arguello fights but he didn't really seem to capitalize upon those victories. I know he had drug problems but how good could he have been if he had stayed clean and dedicated to boxing? How would he have fared in the current era?

 

He was a great fighter. If not for the drugs which he was already using who knows what he could have achived.

 

Who do you think could have beaten him in the modern era?.......No one, not even Kostya/Floyd or Pacman, he was a brilliant boxer as well as a full on tear up merchant & SRL wanted no part of him either, always found himself frozen out & after what he did to Arguello in the rematch to just confirm his greatness, left him well & truly out in the cold, no invites to the big $$$$ pig out trough for Aaron. His career mirrored that of Haglers, back then unless you had an Olympic Gold medal, you were doomed to obscurity, no big TV deals or exposure, just the long hard bitter slog up the rankings for bum paydays.

 

Pryor was a truly great fighter .. exceptional heart, recuperative powers, terrific speed, unsurpassed stamina and frightening power ... he was really a blown uplight weight that moved to 140 because no one would give him a title shot at 135 .. No one ever went thru Cervantes like Pryor did, he simply destroyed him .. he would have been a terrific match up for Floyd with his stamina, speed and power .. I would have loved to see him , prime for prime, against Duran and Chavez ..

 

In my opinion he is overrated. He basically was what he was, a hard punching brawler with a great chin. He had to resort to cheating to win against a faded Arguello who was coming up in weight.

 

good points durananimal. Aaron was one of my favorite fighters. He had it all. Peaked in early eighties, yet none of the money elite would fight him. Would have loved to see him with Davis, Leanard, Benitez, Cuevas, Duran, Hearns, etc, though I think they moved up in weight as he arrived if I remember right. But, as much as I like some of these guys, they do themselves in with drugs, alcohol, or disinterest in the sport.

 

He was way more than a brawler. Pryor had excellent boxing skills ,excellent footwork he was a complete fighter and a great one at that.

 

Excellent footwork? what the hell was ray leonrd then!!

 

What the **** does one have to do with the other???

 

Alex didn't come across as faded in this fight and did everything I could have expected of him at any point of his career. We don't know of course what Panama mixed in the bottle but he cheated, we don't know that Aaron knew of it or that he wouldn't have still ko'd Alex without it. Unknowns.

 

Had he stayed clean, he'd have been around a long while, provided he stayed at 140. He just wasn't built to compete at 147, I don't think.

When he retired for whatever goofy reason in 1983 it left a real void in leadership of the junior-welter ranks. Johnny Bumphus, one of the most overhyped prospects ever, won his vacated WBA crown and promptly lost it to Hatcher, who promptly lost it to Sacco, who promptly lost it to Oliva, etc., etc. In other words, there was a lot of parity at 140 then. On the WBC side of that coin, there were retreads like Haley and Mamby and an exciting but flawed and somewhat fragile Bill Costello, who was probably the best of the immediate post-Hawk era. As exciting as parity can be assuming everyone fights one another, it also means that there's no real standout talent there.

 

The Hawk kept going long After 1983, he fought in 84, 85, and had his last match in 1990, and probably could have fought long after 35, if he wasn't so heavy into the coke and booze, he was a very exciting and talented fighter but it seemed like in the 1980s so many guys got too heavy into Cocaine, and he was no exception....
In my opinion he could have went up and competed at 147, he was focused and determined enough, and could have given Leonard and Hearns a serious fight, but he was content to stay at 140, whatever, if it isn't broke don't try to fix it...

 

Panama put crushed asthma meds in the water to give Pryor his wind back. Pryor was fading badly after the 13th and it looked like he was going to get finished soon but all of a sudden in the 14 it's like he's completely fresh again. It doesn't matter if Pryor knew or not, he still felt the effects.

In my opinion he was an overrated fighter. SRL would have utterly destroyed him.

 

He retired in 1983, then came back a year later to fight Nicky Furlano. The fact that a guy like Furlano went 15 with Pryor shows how far he'd fallen. It wasn't the same guy.