Why is Aaron Pryor so highly rated ?

I'm not trying to diss the man but Aaron drew the line, and Leonard feared to cross it

 

when you draw the line and tell him to cross it, and you refuse, it means you're afraid to fight

seeing is believing

 

Who knows and who cares? According to himself he was coked up and doing stupid ****. So that's probably the reason. Doesn't really matter. but saying a WW ducked a MW is just a non-starter.

 

There is even less logic in Leonard ducking someone two divisions above him, something Rooster also pushes. But everything he pushes is nonsense.

 

I wouldn't myself use the term duck, in all seriousness.

But, neither would I focus on Leonard being a Welterweight. He'd won a Light-Middleweight title by the time the fight was being talked about and only ever fought at Welterweight once, after Hearns I.

I think the Hagler/Leonard bout could have happened back then.

 

No he did not you halfwit if Pryor in-between lines of cocaine was so good and SRL so afraid then Pryor should have taken the offer and proved it but it was he that chickened out you dipshite.....GD for the love of God trying to reason with this dimwit is not possible had Pryor been such a badarss he would have said "meh" taken the fight and had he won he would've been the golden goose.....jeez you gotta quit smoking that stuff you saw what it did to your hero

 

How do you figure he couldn't get a shot at 35 he never beat a ranked 135 fighter and most of the 140lb fighters were not good enough to be rated at their natural weights so they fought in the no glory rif raff 140.

Not in a million years could Pryor ever beat Garcia, Thurman, Spence, Matthyse or any of the modern dehydrated middleweights at Welterweight and forget Loma or Mikey Garcia he might beat1-2 at 130 who are dehydrated 140-147lb fightersj. All the fighters that hurt and dropped Pryor the killers I mentioned are alot better

 

Have any Pryor fans actually watched anything besides the Arguello fights or the out of context highlight videos? He was an average fighter in every way and take away the cocaine legs and energy he was not particularly gifted

 

Of course he was a WW. He had stepped up for one fight to JMW. The rest were all at WW, where he was very comfortable and didn't struggle with weight.

But even if he was a JMW, there is no way he could "duck" the MW champion.

Yes, the fight could be made. So can many fights. Hagler-Spinks could be made in all probability. That doesn't mean that it had to be made.

 

Now we're going further and further from the topic, I just have to say that it says a lot about parts of this forum that Leonard gets much more criticism for not jumping up two divisions from the one he was undisputed champ in, than Hagler does for only facing one challenger that actually had done something at MW during the last 2,5 years of his MW reign.

It's all emotion. Of course, fanboy bias plays a part but I can't help but wonder if it has something to do with that Hagler is considered more "real" and blue collar than the more mainstream "liberal media darling" Leonard. There is something similar with Ali and Frazier, but not to this degree.

 

leonard ducked Hagler at a 1982 appearance at Baltimore Civic Center
He brought Hagler over in order to make an announcement of a Hagler - srl fight, then backed out

he backed out not because the weight was a problem (weighed 153 in 1979 for Marcos Geraldo)

but rather because Leonard had been a great champion, and didnt want to be knocked out by the world's best p4p fighter

with Pryor, it was different; he'd just been challenged by a fighter he knew he'd have his hands full with and knew better than to accept that challenge

 

that's just the same ploy you are limited to using because you helpless to refute anything I say

 

have leonard fans actually viewed anything besides Hearns 1 in which he was hopelessly behind on all 3 scorecards?

He was an average fighter who was outshustled by a fighter two weight classes below his
and knocked out by a washed up blown up featherweight

and totally outclassed by Mr nobody Terry Norris in 1991. Terry used Ray's head for a speedbag!

seriously, why did it take him 11 rounds to take out someone named Larry Bonds, an inept fighter brought in just to lie down for him, and wasnt even fighting back?

is it any wonder WHY he's turned down so many fights?
and seriously, does anyone with BRAINS actually think 500K is a serious offer to fight?
that's between promoters and managers to iron out

 

I knew Mugabi was ranked nr 1 and he had done actual work at 160, but it suprised me to see that The Ring ranked Hearns as the top contender at MW despite him not having fought there. Did the sanctioning bodies, though? Perhaps they did. Seems a bit unfair on the contenders that actually fought at 160.

I said that Leonard is labelled a "liberal media darling" by some now, on this forum, not necissarily in the 80's. Back then his retirement wasn't seen as some kind of sneaky ruse to wait out Hagler either, rather it was more or less universally seen as suicide to go for him, it is something has popped up long after the fact.

 

I think I've already been pretty clear about the term "duck", in a previous post and, while you acknowledge the Hagler/Leonard fight could have been made, you seem to imply that it wasn't a realistic bout; comparing the same with Hagler and Spinks. The latter was not even a serious consideration.

This is why I asked why Leonard would even mention the possibility of a Hagler/Leonard fight, at a large gathering, brought together at his invitation? Why build up anticipation in that same audience, acknowledging a Hagler/Leonard bout as the fight the public wanted to see - but then declare that it would never happen (even though it did, 4.5 years later)?

If it hadn't been considered a realistic match-up in the first place, it makes Leonard's whole [first] retirement antics seem all the more grandiose. But, as you might have picked up by now, I think it was considered a genuine option for Leonard. I just don't think Leonard wanted it back then.

We also shouldn't forget that Leonard was the Ring Champ at 147 and 154, simultaneously, for a period over '81-'82. He was no longer a pure Welterweight, in my opinion, and I would speculate that, had he not retired then, he would have continued in a higher division; probably at 154, going into 1983.