Aaron Pryor: Where does he rank?

PowerPuncher is definitely not a terrible poster. He can be when he's talking about Mayweather/Jones/Tyson, but he's often a wake-up call apart from that.

 

What do you have against Pep? He looks astonishing on film.

 

You do. You're the type of guy that will only buy vinyl and bang on about how superior it is. Whine about commercial music, drink herbal tea, go to uni, wear a scarf in summer, grammar police social networking websites and coat your walls with pictures of Stephen Fry, naked, and call it artistic.

 

No Uni.

No scarves.

Vinyl IS better.

 

When we all know that he was much better getting schooled by Vilomar Fernandez at 130, or when he was shitting out green against Olivares?

When we all know that Pryor would never have won without it?

 

Racist? Nah, I´m a Bavarian supremacist though.
And I´m not old school, I´m scifi! :bart
Beeing talked about in the same sentance like B-Hop is a honour.

 

You are a terrible poster. Please remove yourself from y our own list immediately.

 

You can't be a racist if you love Jack Johnson!

 

He's one of the best ever at 140 but not a pound for pound all-time great in my opinion. Pryor just didn't do enough, he turned down many potential superfights and ruined his career with drugs. He may have been a nightmare for many fighters stylistically, but I feel his recklessness may have cost him against the likes of Hearns, Leonard.

The Arguello fights should have taken his career to new heights, but in fact they pretty much marked the end of his run. He wasn't an effective fighter at all after the second Arguello fight.

 

I agree with most of this.My main issue with Pryor is he did nothign to consolidate things after the fights which seemed to indicate he was a great.

He's always going to do better with head to head orientated lists, and posters who prefer that to rigorously breaking down records.I can sympathise somewhat with that.

 

I think your off with Maid Marion mate, think she got busted in her teens :yep

I never heard of him turning Duran/Leonard down and would find it strange, he seemed to begging for a big fight. I dont think Mamby was any sort of threat to Pryor but it would have made sense.

How effective the substances were for improving performances is a major question mark in my mind.

As for PEDs, we have to judge based on what we see, Holyfield/Vitali/Mosley have definately done them, do we not rank them because of that? Nearly all boxers use a PED in the form of diuretics to artifically reduce their weight to get a size/strength advantage.

In essence I think the lack of credit Pryor gets for slaying Golliath is very unfair. I swear if David beat Golliath in 1980s boxing, people on Classic would say 'Golliath was past his prime, Golliath had eye problems, Golliath was suffering from giantism'. He doesnt even get credit for the rematch when he certainly wouldnt be on any PEDs 'oh the imaginery PEDs already ruined Arguello'. I think it boils down to people loving Arguello and having a bitterness to his conquoror

 

He admitted to turning down an offer to fight Leonard during an interview with Cosell after the Lennox Blackmoore fight.

His management was a mess:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1126084/3/index.htm

Manny Steward's comments on Pryor-Arguello:

 

The Arguello wins took him from a very good to a great/borderline great fighter.

I do rate him highly because of those wins..Especially H2H at the weight...To tell you the truth I always thought I overrated him a little but was comfortable with it...all this top30 shiz is making me feel even more comfortable.

If you know a little bit about Pryor's story outside the ring you can understand why he turned down those fights...it was about money and Pryor's sense of entitlement. He really truly felt he was avoided and that he deserved the kind of paydays that the other superstars were getting.
When you are fighter with that much ability, I guess you can kind of understand the mindset these guys have. His management also was ****ed up from the start and then King got in his ear.

I think they did finally nail down a Leonard fight for a price he was happy with...then Ray hurt his eye and Pryor was pretty much done with the sport.

 

And GreatA is on top of it for me.

 

Interesting article, a legend as ever GA, Pryor sounded pretty much out of it, the drugs certainly didnt do him any favours

In regards to the second Arguello fight, I think Stweard is wrong on 1 thing, and thats defense, I remember Pryor getting hit far more. He sat on his shots and got more leverage and power though