Originally Posted by
Mr140
The Hawk never moved up in his prime and his division was pretty baron his best win is over a great fighter but he was way over his peak weight. I mean the golden era of boxing was happening above the guy and he is not going to move and try to get into the mix by fighting some contenders at 147 it always seemed weird to me. The man was tough but really wild and left open all the time Leonard wins pretty wide decision, Duran is closer call and I think Hearns puts him to sleep early.
I've made this point before, but think it is worth repeating here: some fighters have styles and physical gifts that "click" at a certain weight, and only that weight. Monzon and a Hagler are two great examples of this. It is difficult to pick against either in any mythical match up (p4p or otherwise), yet they remained at one weight throughout their careers. Pryor was like that at 140.
There are many old timers who claim Leonard wanted nothing to do with Pryor and that Pryor had his way with Leonard during training/competing in the amateurs. This may or may not be true, but I'm not 100% sold that Pryor has no hope based off of one or two poor performances. Styles, lack of motivation...etc., can impact a fighter's performance, and Leonard had a couple of fights where he looked less than stellar as well (Howard Davis as an example).
Some fighters are swarmers who have a very unorthodox style and rhythm which throws off other fighters. Prime Johnny Tapia, Joe Calzaghe, and even Pac Man are examples. Joe was very similar in that he threw many punches and often seemed to be wide open due to having his hands down, but proved much harder to hit than what was anticipated. Pryor had a great chin also, and this only made him that much more brazen and difficult to beat.
Could Ray, Tommy...etc., beaten Pryor? Sure. Was he overhyped and not as great as people make him out to be? Not in my opinion. Aaron Pryor had the style, attitude, and physical gifts to beat anyone at his weight, and proved this by cleaning the weight class out. Every time you have that dominant a champ, you have people criticizing their level of competition (Hop, Joe Loius, Wlad, Kostya...etc.).
Bookmarks