Aaron Pryor Vs Sugar Ray Leonard-Who Wins,and Why..

First topic message reminder :

Evening all,
Watching the wonderful series "Legendary Nights" (always thought that a better title was "Legendary Fights", but there you go) some years ago,I was amazed to discover Aaron Pryor. Having been a product of 80s boxing, I had never come across him, although I was aware of Leonard and Hearns' first fight.
Pryor was not a particularly likeable man and it did seem that he had something of an anti-image. The real fans knew about him ,but he was bitter-in my view, understandably- that he did not join the elite of the Big Four, or earn anything like the money they did.
However, as a fighter he was as tenacious and hungry as any other who laced gloves.He was not the favourite to beat Arguello at light welteweight,but he did, albeit in controversial circumstances(which need not be gone into here, except to say that I for one think he was innocent of any dodgy goings on,and won the rematch convincingly).His reputation as one of the greatest ever in his weight class is beyond despute.

The Sugar Man however was getting bigger in size as well as in stature, and the briefly mooted fight between them never ,of course, happened.It does seem odd to me though that say Duran fought all-comers at Middle, at a meagre five foot seven inches, Hearns was six foot one inch yet traversed the weight divisions, and yet Leonard, whose natural weight was surely Welter and not any of the higher weights,could not drop down a weight to take on a live threat,who unfortunately was not a marquee name.I do think it is a black mark against Leonard that he did not prove himself against Pryor, and on close scrutiny of his methods, it becomes clear that although he was one of the best fighters ever in many respects, he was awfully choosy about WHEN he fought the best,eg., Hagler as soon as he was on the slide,LaLonde who was never that good, rematched Duran when he knew the other guy had not a cat's chance in hell,etc.. I think that Ray just never fancied the risk against a smaller named opponent who would do him no favours at all.

Whilst Pryor did not have the silky skills of Leonard-who did-his workrate and chin would have stood him in good stead to do what Hearns did to him for eight rounds or so,except over fifteen.It's one genuine mouth-watering match-up ,in my book, and can't help returning to Pryor when the push comes to shove, to edge it.

Thoughts?

Leonard would have far too much skill for Pryor the guy was quality

No was he??

andygf wrote:Phew, a discussion rather than disagreement...I won't tell the others you are doing that.It'll be secret.

thanks andy, the reputation of the whole forum could otherwise be in tatters. If its any consolation, i saw it as a disagreement and was about to unleash my vast repertoire of personal insults