fair enough. Hey, I would have liked to see Leonard fight Pryor too. All I'm saying is, sure Leonard may have passed on an offer to fight Pryor, or maybe Pryor called him out and Leonard declined, but I just don't think "fear of losing", or "risk of losing", was a prime factor for Leonard.

Funny thing about Floyd. I read an interview with him once, and on the question of "ducking" the top welterweights he never denied it, he came right out and said more or less that since he had already moved up four or five divisions, he felt no obligation to call out the big prime welterweights.

regards.

Pryor to me is overrated because of the hbo thing they did on his fight. He was good but he was good in a division of alot of week comp. He could of gone up to welterweight and fought few times to get Leonard but did not. When he did move up he lost so he waited to long to move up really. As for Leonard ducking him he choose to fight Hearns instead to unify and also got a injury which pretty much robbed Leonard of alot of prime years.

Yeah Leonard would have picked him apart for sure. I saw that crazy bastard Pryor race across the ring at the start of the first round once, right into a wild punch, go down backwards, flip over onto his feat and go chasing after the guy swinging with one glove while the ref tried to hold onto the other arm to give him an eight count. Dont think Leonard would have much trouble with that kind of suicidal attack.

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I have to go with the original Sugar as the best, Sugar Ray Robinson.

Ducked Pryor no but self admittingly he was not looking to get in the ring with Aaron without good reason. Pryor was a freaking animal.

Such is the art of sports negotiation. When you are going for the best deal you can get, then sometimes you need to walk away in order that people will take you seriously. In other words, sometimes you need to call their bluff. And then other things happen. Other fights, injuries, and the next thing you know it's too late for Leonard - Pryor.

Aaron Pryor fans this one for ya'll

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The most shameful thing in life is to get beat up by a smaller man.

what time is it, ITS HAWK TIME

I think pryor was very good fighter who was unlucky that the best fighters of his era passed him by much like tszyu also they both also decided to spend their careers in in the light-welterweight division rather than chasing the bigger fights in other divisions like other boxers and i think both are at least in the top 5 LW ever. but i cant see tszyu lasting more than 8 rounds with pryor, who reminds me a bit of hatton when he has an opponent on the ropes.

If Pryor wanted it so bad why didn't he move up to welterweight then? It was the hottest division back then with marquee names. Pryor was an animal indeed but at 140. Leonard was busy making fights with Hearns and Duran, which were much bigger draws than Pryor.

SRL took on Hearns who was more fearsome than Pryor and probably damaged/shortened his career in doing so. The Leonard that beat Hearns would have beaten Pryor and any other Welter ever bar SRR. The detached retina shortened his career.

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Do not let success go to your head and do not let faliure get to your heart.

+3202

IMO
When Leonard and Hearns first met they both would have beaten SRR

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"Pain is Just the feeling of Weakness leaving the body."

Thats pretty impossible to say considering theres hardly anything of SRR at Welterweight, hell except for that clip Oumafan showed us a few days ago. I don't think i had ever seen SRR at Welterweight.

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I remember the guy who runs my boxing gym who saw SRR live a number of times saying that the SRR who fought at MW was only about 25% of the WW he was, & having seen the MW footage, if you take the quote with a pinch of salt & say he was 75% at MW then he was still better than any other WW ever. Fact.

+207

I don't really need to see the footage of SRR.
When I watched SRL and Tommy in that fight (and I've watched it a lot) I'm convinced they were the two best welters ever.

People often say that SRR was the best ever.
Yet when faced with an arguement, they exclaim
"But there's no footage of SRR to judge correctly."

How can anyone call him the best ever welter if they've never seen him fight welter?

I understand what you're saying Jaz but he was beaten plenty at Middle.
Far more than Tommy or Ray in fact.
Any o9ld time English boxer would have seen him lose to Turpin (albeit on the tail end of a dominant European tour.)

I feel that SRR has become a mythical figure.
People atest to his greatness, without question and as I said to Ice without evidence.
Sure he was great, his record solidifies this as a fact, but I think his status has been embossed in gold through the combination of nostalgia and longing for an embodiment of the perfect fighter.

leonard as has been said would not risk his tittles and possible high earning fights to fight pryor ,and why should pryor have to fight at welterweight before getting a tittle shot,he was a dominant champion who in this era would get a tittle shot at a higher weight with-out having to, pryor would crowd leonard just like duran did in thier first fight and get the same result setting up a great trilogy wheather or not pryor would win that trilogy is up in the air .....just my opinion