Is Aaron Pryor under appreciated in general?

In a big amount of people’s minds he’s the junior welterweight H2H GOAT he has respect for his abilities but the appeal of the FAB 4 is they where some of the P4P best of there era and they all fought one another otherwise I believe Benitez would have been inducted had he fought Hagler he definitely has a better case then Pryor so much so some call it the Fab 5.

 

He's a bit of a conundrum from an outsiders perspective. I didn't grow up watching him so its hard to assess him. But from what my eyes see I like. Reading opinions its hard to place him accurately for me.

 

Pryor was very good, great even, but I think it's far more appropriate to consider how he might have done head-to-head against Julio Cesar Chavez or Meldrick Taylor, rather than Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns.
I think Don Curry, Marlon Starling, Lloyd Honeyghan and Mark Breland would have been too much for him too.

 

I rate his win over Arguello very highly. I don’t think Alexis looked very diminished at all. I thought he fought great. He hit Pryor with everything but the kitchen sink, but he couldn’t faze him. I don’t buy the reasoning that his power was notably less effective at that weight, either. He proved conclusively against Rooney that his punch was still a deadly one.

Only counter argument that gives pause for thought is the black bottle, even if the narrative of how extremely it affected him is way overblown. I honestly didn’t notice any difference. He went into kill mode once he had Arguello hurt. That’s par for the course in this sport. Before then nothing about his energy or output stood out.

Anyways, I genuinely think he was one of the most dangerous fighters ever below Welter in a head to head sense. Flawed, certainly, but his mentality, motor, speed, power, and durability were beyond reproach. Assembled together those traits made him one of the most impressive offensive forces ever. At least to me.

 

I think he gets rated fairly by and large. A couple of haters a couple of fan boys...but I think he is rated fairly, below the fab 4 below Benitez/McCallum and while great especially at 140 he falls short of ATG status. Fun exciting and very good, not too underrated by my estimation.