I say yes he was the best 140 lb fighter in history. H2h match-ups he matches up very well. Also, he had unbelievable Ko power in both hands and his only lost was when he was old a high on drugs during the fight. Pryor, deserves to be mentioned amongst the greats.
Pryor was offered half a million to fight Leonard. By contrast, Pryor was making like $50k at that time to fight Cervantes. Pryor said "**** you, pay me more".
The Pintor fight was close but he lost. Batista is an underrated boxer? Having a shitload of defenses in short timespan isn't that impressive really. Not enough time for the division to rearrange itself. Look at Mosley at LW. 9 defenses in a year and a half against mostly low-ranked opponents. Having many defenses during a long period of time is impressive. Among those 8 defenses are fighters like Kaplogo (1-4), Hernandez (2-4), Rodriguez (8-1) etc. Never faced Lujan who also beat Zamora. Lujan was ranked as the no.1 during the 2-3 years Zarate was a WBC champion. The thrashing he received at the hands of Gomez should not be discounted either. Very overrated boxer. But most Mexican boxers are overrated to a certain degree.
Explain. Pryor called Leonard out when he was anything but a house-hold name and had yet to even get the better of Arguello to prove himself as a potential great. And that was at 140 pounds. Not to mention Leonard did offer Pryor a fight (just not then and there at the press conference), for roughly 10 times the purse he'd received against Cervantes (his highest pay-day to that point). Pryor declined. Duran later upped the offer to $750,000, and still Pryor declined. Who ducked who, now?
SRL was scared shitless of Pryor...so took on a bunch of soft touches instead in Benitez, Hearns, and Duran.
Anyone who can stop Arguello twice is deserving of an ATG status to me. One cannot ignore the suspicious Panama Lewis mix though.