42 years ago: Aaron "The Hawk" Pryor, Sr. vs. Andrés Alexis "Flaco Explosivo" Argüello Bohórquez II

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(very high quality upload if you haven't seen it)

Plenty has been written about their rivalry and the rematch itself (which is excellent but probably not as thrilling/competitive as their first clash), so I put to you a fresh query:

Should the Hawk have stayed true to retiring after Argüello II?

El Flaco Explosivo extended his career technically another twelve years after the Pryor rematch, but only fought four times, going 3-1 in that span. Pryor himself milked another 7 outings, going 6-1 and risking & losing his zero ...blowing the chance to join the few to retire an undefeated champion.

Bobby Joe Young isn't some awful ignominious blight on one's record - he lost only to decent fighters (like Malian-Italian flashy stylist Cheick Tidjani Sidibé aka Nino LaRocca, Nigerian southpaw Charles "Young Dick Tiger" Nwokolo, and then-IBF champion Ceseford "Mantequilla / Simon" Brown) but still...

Pryor, on the wrong side of 30, coming off a 2½ year layoff and punching eight pounds above his proper weight, wound up taking a loss to somebody that wasn't close to being in the same class p4p as Pryor in his prime. You could even cut him off after his first defense of the inaugural IBF super lightweight title against Hinton, two fights after Argüello II - still retiring an undefeated (and now two-time, and in the history books as breaking one in) champ.

What was the upside of soldiering on into the latter part of the decade? Sure, there was unresolved business with SRL from '82 (not to mention the sizable payday that would've been) - but Leonard had re-emerged at middleweight to face Hagler four months before Pryor fought Young. So what was his endgame returning at welter in 1987? You had Vaca, Blocker, Starling, Brown, Honeyghan, Breland, Roger Mayweather...all good fighters but it wasn't exactly a dense landscape of blockbuster moneymaking opportunities.

 

But with the fact being that he did do drugs in 84/85/86...what was the plan, in '87?

He couldn't make 140 anymore. The welters of the day weren't big draws. Leonard was out of reach.