Aaron Pryor Vs Thomas Hearns 1976 Golden Gloves.

Interestingly both Leonard and H earns avoid Aaron in the Pros .The reason, a very dangerous fight with no money involved.Duran Tommy and Leonard held center stage but no one knew who Pryor was at the time.

 

The reason is the Hearns and Leonard were Welterweights and Pryor was still having life and death with Arguello at 140 when Leonard retired and Tommy moved to 154.

 

Pryor was calling them both out but the money was just not there!

 

Good stuff.

 

no headgear?

 

Just as a matter of interest. COKE RULES Sugar Ray Leonard: Took up the drug during his early forced retirement due to a detached retina. It’s difficult to say his drug use really hampered his career. After all, he still managed to accomplish an awful lot. Perhaps a straight-and-narrow Leonard, however, would have made his comeback sooner. Maybe he would have been in a better state of mind for the Kevin Howard comeback fight, a bout where Leonard was dropped causing him to retire again immediately after the bout. Without his cocaine problem, maybe we get Leonard-Hagler a few years earlier and perhaps his career trajectory takes a significantly different course.

Aaron Pryor: One of cocaine’s worst casualties in sports history. Went from one of the top fighters in the game to a stumbling bum in a few short years. While it’s possible that Pryor’s drug use came at the end of his string of dominance, it’s probable that he missed out on a few big fights because of this. A fight with Leonard could have been made, but never came off. He could have moved into the resurgent welterweight scene of the mid 80’s. No one would have minded what for sure would have been a barnburner with a young Donald Curry. None of it ever happened. Instead we saw a coke-decimated Pryor get throttled by unexceptional fringe contender Bobby Joe Young.

Alexis Arguello: It’s a stretch to say the drug did that much damage to Arguello’s career. Nevertheless, he could have ended his career far more gracefully if not for his cocaine issue. With the demise of Pryor, a straight and dedicated Arguello could have taken over at 140 lbs for a while at least. The post-Pryor era was relatively mediocre and a better-preserved Arguello would have been right in the mix. Maybe he could have secured another big win or two. More importantly, maybe he would have been spared some of the psychological damage that caused him to eventually take his own life.

 

"Calling out" means nothing. Its pro boxing, not the school yard.

The onus was on Pryor. If Pryor wanted to fight either man he should have moved to 147 and beaten a couple of decent names. He didn't. How can Hearns or Leonard be accused of avoiding someone who never even fought in the same weight class as them?

 

Not in those days.

 

would you happen to know when head gear was mandatory?

 

I'm a Brit and I'm not sure the exact year they came in for USA amateur contests but 1984 was the first Olympics where they were mandatory IIRC. Quite a while after that Hearns-Pryor fight.

 

classic...thanks for the link

 

What is it with so many boxing fans and their ridiculous fascination with this whole calling out process? Is boxing supposed to be the schoolyard, not a business where fights are made with a contract?

I don't understand it. It's a multi-million dollar business and people act like fights are made in interviews.

Leonard offered Pryor a fight, for $500,000. Pryor said after the Lenny Blackmoore fight that he turned it down because he wanted a million. You can call it a low-ball offer but it doesn't help the case of the "Leonard ducked Pryor" claim that pops up all the time on message boards because of the HBO series Legendary Nights, a program that spawned more myths than Ancient Greece. $500,000 was still more than 10 times that of Pryor's previous career high payday he got for fighting Antonio Cervantes.

 

Thread Stealer,

We seem to meet up in threads like this every now and again debunking Legendary Nights.

 

Hearns right hand would have been a bigger factor in the professional rank.

 

It's actually a well-done series that I enjoyed. I just hate the fact that it spawned these myths.

I can't stand boxing myths and revisionist history.

"Hagler was a brawler", "Leonard and the WWs ducked Pryor", "Taylor was a shitty brain-damaged fighter immediately after Chavez", "Leonard was a dancer who suddenly decided to stand flat-footed against Duran and then went back to dancing", "every single of Tyson's 50 victims were scared of him, Tyson was really into did the pre-fight staredown", etc...

Boxing myths and misconceptions need to go away.