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Mythical Match Up #1: Ray Leonard vs. Aaron Pryor (Spring, 1982)

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  • #31
    Originally posted by QueensburyRules View Post
    - -The Great Scott, R.I.P., went quite a few rds on ye Olde AOL forum expresses the status quo opinion I disagree with.

    Had Ray thought he could beat him, he'd have taken the fight, but it was the same lack of confidence with Marv Nd the Duran rubber. He didn't want to get whooped and entered into his regrettable retirement games that lost him respect.
    Oh has Scott passed away?

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    • #32
      Originally posted by BattlingNelson View Post
      Oh has Scott passed away?
      - -He was in my predictor league and passed about 3 yrs ago. No cause given, just here one day and gone the next, not a bad way to go.

      Still have the Vitali vs Hide tape he made for me since back then I'd never seen a Vitali fight, so he lives on in part.

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by QueensburyRules View Post
        - -He was in my predictor league and passed about 3 yrs ago. No cause given, just here one day and gone the next, not a bad way to go.

        Still have the Vitali vs Hide tape he made for me since back then I'd never seen a Vitali fight, so he lives on in part.
        That saddens me.

        So many great posters from this section seems to have passed away. Scott was an atg. May he Rest In Peace.

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by Rspen46 View Post
          Leonard for sure.

          I post a lot on Aaron Pryor, I do that for a reason, I post on things I have a lot of knowledge on or about a particular fighter or subject and none more so than Pryor, I lived in Cincinnati at that time and still nearby, everyone in the City was a Pryor fan, along with Mancini as he was from Ohio, they were always the top sports stories in town when either had a fight, I also trained at both of Pryor's Gym's in town before he moved out of town to train, he still kept his Gym going here, I started out training, was a teenager and became a gofer for Pryor and his people, they needed food, myself and a couple others would get it, we would do little things like that for them to be apart of the group, so we were privy to a lot of inside talk and goings on in his Camp and from him personally, I also saw every Pro fight but one in person and just over half his Amateur fights in person, including the Hearns fight, I will give alittle info on things with Pryor then tell you whom I would pick to win, but you might be able to tell before I'm done, 1st of all Aaron more or less believed he could be anyone, but although a super nice guy when not doing drugs, which he did constantly, he was dumber than a rock, uneducated, but had street smarts, as far as Ring Generalship, he had ZERO, and he would tell you that, he always said, I'm going to attack and throw punches until one of us is down for the count, he never listened to anyone, he did his own training and what little if any strategy in the ring he used was all 100% himself, his Camp, his people, trainers and everyone, all thought 100% differently, they did not believe he could be any and everyone, word around his camp was, they basically ran him from the Lw division before he could get a fight with a top 5 guy or someone that might beat him before he could get a title somewhere, so they said they chose what they thought to be the worst division at the time in boxing the JWW division which happened to only be 1 weight for him, they figured he probably could beat an aging Cervantes, so after much discussion, they finally convinced him to leave the LW division where he wanted to fight everyone, and he did beat Cervantes, even though he was put down in the fight, Cervantes just did not have enough left to keep him down, plus they always had Aaron all hyped up on any and everything they could get him to take before during and after fights, there were 2 guys that did a lot of research to try to find out the best mix of things he could take that would help him in a fight and yes that's what Panama Lewis had in the Arguello fight, I would have to look but I have it all written down what they gave him in that fight, Lewis helped them refine it a bit, once he became champ, everyone around him wanted him to hold onto the Title as long as possible, making good money and making a living for everyone around him to feed off of him, no one, except buddy LaRosa were there for his benefit or best interests and when he signed with DOn King it was the beginning of the end for him as he shut out Larosa 100% by then, he wanted to fight Leonard, Hearns, Duran, benitez, that's what he always would be heard talking about, he also wanted Mancini and to get a chance to redeem himself against Howard Davis Jr. for beating him twice in the Olympics to keep him from fighting for GOLD, he talked about others also but those were his top 5 he wanted a piece of, but his camp kept him from them all, on his way up to WW, Duran sent in an offer to Buddy Larosa for $750,000 that was big news in the Cinci papers at that time, do to so much crap and delaying, the date on the contract expired and they never gave a reply so Duran moved on up, Leonard offered $500,000 they turned it down and said they wanted more, they came back with $750,000 it was to be fought at a catchweight between WW & JWW they turned that one down, word around the Gym was they were holding out for 1 million which they thought Leonard would come back with, he never did after those 2 offers, he also moved on. so to replace those fights they wanted a big one to satisfy Aaron, but they wanted a big name with big money, but someone they really believed he had a shot to beat, so it ended up as Arguello, they talked that he was around 31, he had cleaned out the LW division and by moving up to jww would be way above his best at jlw, they talked how they believed he did not bring his best power from JLW to LW, even though strong not quite the power he had at JLW, and they talked how he would be even slower at JWW, and that he was slow anyway and Robotic type of a fighter, they thought he would not be able to handle Aaron, but they still decided that Lewis would use the new mixture they had worked so hard on to help him out, and it did, Arguello hit him with one of the best Right Hands, I've ever seen, I was 4 rows back and saw it land, it bent Pryor's head straight back, and we all swore the back of his head hit his back, we all said,crap that's it the fight is over, Pryor sprung his head back up and charged into him laughing, the drug mix was working, at the end of the bout, Pryor staggered over to our side where his friends and all of us were sitting and he could not talk straight, he acted and talked like a drunken or drugged up person, 1 reported tried asking questions and he slurred any replies, they grabbed him and kept him away from anyone, without the mixture, Pryor gets knocked out by an aging, over his best weight Arguello, by the 2nd bout, they knew they had basically stolen Arguello's heart & soul and ability to even begin to believe he could beat Pryor, also they never, ever let him fight anyone with power, other than an old Cervantes and Arguello, not a single power guy, he also never fought 1 really good fighter in his prime within his own division, he even somehow managed to avoid fighting Saul mamby the other JWW champ for nearly 2 years to unify the JWW title, I thought he beats Mamby for sure as Mamby had no power, but at that time he had put together a string of excellent fights outboxing his opponents and at an older age in his career had hit his stride, so Pryor's camp decided to avoid Mamby, so he did not even unify his own divisions Title in the crappiest division in boxing at that time, as the LW division was stacked, I still think he goes through the LW division if he had stayed, at least until Arguello arrived, a better fight for Arguello at LW, we all talked what a great fight Pryor & Mancini would have made for a few rounds, also, Jim Watt, a rematch with Howard davis Jr. Sean O'grady, Hilmer Kenty who also outpointed Pryor in the amateurs, Gato Gonzalez & Andy Ganigan, both power punchers, and eventually Rosario and maybe even Chavez and others, but again that's why they vacated the LW division, now to the Leonard fight, there had been a lot of talk about Leonard being in Pryor's camp in Florida and sparring with him and Aaron getting the best of him, I was there, we would go down for weeks at a time at stay there with them, him and Leonard with somewhat friends then, SRL came in to spar with him to show him and work with him on some things, they were sparring normally, when all of a sudden pryor just tore into leonard, pinned him on the ropes and just whaled away on him, on drugs as usual of course, Leonard caught totally off guard and by surprise you could tell at 1st, almost immediately went into fight mode and began throwing punches in combinations much, much faster than pryor, SR was pissed off, he threw so many he backed him off of him and started throwing bombs on Pryor and knocked him back into the opposite end of the ring into the ropes, SR went into him fast, pounding away, Pryor could not defend himself too well, as he was not the best anyway at defense, he was about to be knocked out when everyone finally decided to jump in and stop it before he did get knocked out as that would have been too embarrassing, Leonard got his gloves off, threw them down and walked to the locker room, 10 mins later he walked out with his bag and waved and said thanks and goodbye to everyone and walked out and that was it, pryor's people went into defense mode at that point and began their own spin of what had happened to help save face, from what we heard, leonard would not return calls to him and they never spoke again, as far as who wins, Pryor was in top shape getting ready for a fight at that time, Leonard was in shape but not fight shape, he was caught totally off guard by Pryor's attack and Aaron had every advantage and Leonard was seconds away from knocking him out, Leonard showed us all he was faster, quicker and we all talked later, he showed more power, priory hit hard with both hands, but no one ever thought he possessed big KO power in 1 hand, SRL was bigger, had better movement, and 10x smarter, in all our opinions from that incident, and everyone in Pryor's entire camp talked about it, everyone agreed that in a real fight for the money, Leonard would have knocked Pryor out within 2 -5 rounds max, that from his own camp, and I agreed then and 100% still agree Leonard via KO and not a pretty one either, he would destroy Pryor especially after that incident and he knew they lied to everyone about what had happened, it would y 3 roundsybe Hearns-Hagler all over again, Hagler hating hearns and taking his punches, then destroying him, also any talk Pryor beats hearns is laughable, as Amateurs, pryor at that time was already a fully matured and Pro ready fighter, hearns was nowhere near being the Hitman yet, he would devastate Pryor as he did Duran, and Duran Pyror, Duran Knocks him out of the universe. and again, I trained in his gym and hung out and did odd jobs for him and his camp because we idolized him and loved watching him fight, but we were all knowledgeable fight people, we knew his limitations, he was an exciting fighter with good power in both hands with good speed, but no chin, no balance, no brains, so no strategy or Ring Generalship to speak of, and no defense, against any all time great he loses.
          Had Pryor fought Hearns at 147 he would have got ko.There was no bigger puncher at 147 than hearns.That amatuer fight with Hearns believe or not was fought at 132 & with 14 onz gloves & was only 3 rounds.We now know Pryor was taking fast acting Asthma medicine in his fight with Arguello & that is called cheating.In a tough tough fight like they were in which was a 15 round champion ship fight that was enough for Pryor to score the ko.They say boxing is 50% physical & 50% mental & in their second fight I am certain Arguello was scard from that 1st lost.Had he not taken that medicine i think Pryor would have won a close decision.I have Chavez #1 greatest 140 pounder of all time & Pryor a close 2nd.14 title defenses for Chavez & one of the greatest body punchers & chins of all time.I believe it is ring maazine that has Pryor vs Arguello 1 as the greatest fight of the 1980's.

          Comment


          • #35
            Leonard wins handily, for all the reasons listed so far.

            Comment


            • #36
              Leonard wins. When they sparred Pryor got buckled in the 3 round. Pryor Wanted to continue but they called it off. The first 2 were competitive rounds though if I recall the article.

              Pryor and his style wouldn’t match up as well as Durans would (inside fighting). Pryor is a terrific out fighter one of the best ever, but so is Leonard; only its 147.

              the only wildcard is the motivation involved in a rivalry. He really wanted Leonard and Pryor may have shown up the night they fought at 110% making it either a lot harder for Leonard or even beating him. This wouldn’t be my prediction, but if it happened it wouldn’t really be baffling. My gun to head prediction is Leonard by knockout or decision.

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by cyril layman View Post

                Had Pryor fought Hearns at 147 he would have got ko.There was no bigger puncher at 147 than hearns.That amatuer fight with Hearns believe or not was fought at 132 & with 14 onz gloves & was only 3 rounds.We now know Pryor was taking fast acting Asthma medicine in his fight with Arguello & that is called cheating.In a tough tough fight like they were in which was a 15 round champion ship fight that was enough for Pryor to score the ko.They say boxing is 50% physical & 50% mental & in their second fight I am certain Arguello was scard from that 1st lost.Had he not taken that medicine i think Pryor would have won a close decision.I have Chavez #1 greatest 140 pounder of all time & Pryor a close 2nd.14 title defenses for Chavez & one of the greatest body punchers & chins of all time.I believe it is ring maazine that has Pryor vs Arguello 1 as the greatest fight of the 1980's.
                Yeah Hearns in the amateurs wasn’t even a puncher. It was after Bernard Mays broke Hearns nose and ****ed him up in sparring that Hearns became this mean venomous puncher. His stablemates said he was never the same after that sparring session. He thought about quitting boxing. He came back though meaner then ever and ended up being one of the best p4p hitters of all time
                JAB5239 JAB5239 likes this.

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by Rspen46 View Post
                  Leonard for sure.

                  I post a lot on Aaron Pryor, I do that for a reason, I post on things I have a lot of knowledge on or about a particular fighter or subject and none more so than Pryor, I lived in Cincinnati at that time and still nearby, everyone in the City was a Pryor fan, along with Mancini as he was from Ohio, they were always the top sports stories in town when either had a fight, I also trained at both of Pryor's Gym's in town before he moved out of town to train, he still kept his Gym going here, I started out training, was a teenager and became a gofer for Pryor and his people, they needed food, myself and a couple others would get it, we would do little things like that for them to be apart of the group, so we were privy to a lot of inside talk and goings on in his Camp and from him personally, I also saw every Pro fight but one in person and just over half his Amateur fights in person, including the Hearns fight, I will give alittle info on things with Pryor then tell you whom I would pick to win, but you might be able to tell before I'm done, 1st of all Aaron more or less believed he could be anyone, but although a super nice guy when not doing drugs, which he did constantly, he was dumber than a rock, uneducated, but had street smarts, as far as Ring Generalship, he had ZERO, and he would tell you that, he always said, I'm going to attack and throw punches until one of us is down for the count, he never listened to anyone, he did his own training and what little if any strategy in the ring he used was all 100% himself, his Camp, his people, trainers and everyone, all thought 100% differently, they did not believe he could be any and everyone, word around his camp was, they basically ran him from the Lw division before he could get a fight with a top 5 guy or someone that might beat him before he could get a title somewhere, so they said they chose what they thought to be the worst division at the time in boxing the JWW division which happened to only be 1 weight for him, they figured he probably could beat an aging Cervantes, so after much discussion, they finally convinced him to leave the LW division where he wanted to fight everyone, and he did beat Cervantes, even though he was put down in the fight, Cervantes just did not have enough left to keep him down, plus they always had Aaron all hyped up on any and everything they could get him to take before during and after fights, there were 2 guys that did a lot of research to try to find out the best mix of things he could take that would help him in a fight and yes that's what Panama Lewis had in the Arguello fight, I would have to look but I have it all written down what they gave him in that fight, Lewis helped them refine it a bit, once he became champ, everyone around him wanted him to hold onto the Title as long as possible, making good money and making a living for everyone around him to feed off of him, no one, except buddy LaRosa were there for his benefit or best interests and when he signed with DOn King it was the beginning of the end for him as he shut out Larosa 100% by then, he wanted to fight Leonard, Hearns, Duran, benitez, that's what he always would be heard talking about, he also wanted Mancini and to get a chance to redeem himself against Howard Davis Jr. for beating him twice in the Olympics to keep him from fighting for GOLD, he talked about others also but those were his top 5 he wanted a piece of, but his camp kept him from them all, on his way up to WW, Duran sent in an offer to Buddy Larosa for $750,000 that was big news in the Cinci papers at that time, do to so much crap and delaying, the date on the contract expired and they never gave a reply so Duran moved on up, Leonard offered $500,000 they turned it down and said they wanted more, they came back with $750,000 it was to be fought at a catchweight between WW & JWW they turned that one down, word around the Gym was they were holding out for 1 million which they thought Leonard would come back with, he never did after those 2 offers, he also moved on. so to replace those fights they wanted a big one to satisfy Aaron, but they wanted a big name with big money, but someone they really believed he had a shot to beat, so it ended up as Arguello, they talked that he was around 31, he had cleaned out the LW division and by moving up to jww would be way above his best at jlw, they talked how they believed he did not bring his best power from JLW to LW, even though strong not quite the power he had at JLW, and they talked how he would be even slower at JWW, and that he was slow anyway and Robotic type of a fighter, they thought he would not be able to handle Aaron, but they still decided that Lewis would use the new mixture they had worked so hard on to help him out, and it did, Arguello hit him with one of the best Right Hands, I've ever seen, I was 4 rows back and saw it land, it bent Pryor's head straight back, and we all swore the back of his head hit his back, we all said,crap that's it the fight is over, Pryor sprung his head back up and charged into him laughing, the drug mix was working, at the end of the bout, Pryor staggered over to our side where his friends and all of us were sitting and he could not talk straight, he acted and talked like a drunken or drugged up person, 1 reported tried asking questions and he slurred any replies, they grabbed him and kept him away from anyone, without the mixture, Pryor gets knocked out by an aging, over his best weight Arguello, by the 2nd bout, they knew they had basically stolen Arguello's heart & soul and ability to even begin to believe he could beat Pryor, also they never, ever let him fight anyone with power, other than an old Cervantes and Arguello, not a single power guy, he also never fought 1 really good fighter in his prime within his own division, he even somehow managed to avoid fighting Saul mamby the other JWW champ for nearly 2 years to unify the JWW title, I thought he beats Mamby for sure as Mamby had no power, but at that time he had put together a string of excellent fights outboxing his opponents and at an older age in his career had hit his stride, so Pryor's camp decided to avoid Mamby, so he did not even unify his own divisions Title in the crappiest division in boxing at that time, as the LW division was stacked, I still think he goes through the LW division if he had stayed, at least until Arguello arrived, a better fight for Arguello at LW, we all talked what a great fight Pryor & Mancini would have made for a few rounds, also, Jim Watt, a rematch with Howard davis Jr. Sean O'grady, Hilmer Kenty who also outpointed Pryor in the amateurs, Gato Gonzalez & Andy Ganigan, both power punchers, and eventually Rosario and maybe even Chavez and others, but again that's why they vacated the LW division, now to the Leonard fight, there had been a lot of talk about Leonard being in Pryor's camp in Florida and sparring with him and Aaron getting the best of him, I was there, we would go down for weeks at a time at stay there with them, him and Leonard with somewhat friends then, SRL came in to spar with him to show him and work with him on some things, they were sparring normally, when all of a sudden pryor just tore into leonard, pinned him on the ropes and just whaled away on him, on drugs as usual of course, Leonard caught totally off guard and by surprise you could tell at 1st, almost immediately went into fight mode and began throwing punches in combinations much, much faster than pryor, SR was pissed off, he threw so many he backed him off of him and started throwing bombs on Pryor and knocked him back into the opposite end of the ring into the ropes, SR went into him fast, pounding away, Pryor could not defend himself too well, as he was not the best anyway at defense, he was about to be knocked out when everyone finally decided to jump in and stop it before he did get knocked out as that would have been too embarrassing, Leonard got his gloves off, threw them down and walked to the locker room, 10 mins later he walked out with his bag and waved and said thanks and goodbye to everyone and walked out and that was it, pryor's people went into defense mode at that point and began their own spin of what had happened to help save face, from what we heard, leonard would not return calls to him and they never spoke again, as far as who wins, Pryor was in top shape getting ready for a fight at that time, Leonard was in shape but not fight shape, he was caught totally off guard by Pryor's attack and Aaron had every advantage and Leonard was seconds away from knocking him out, Leonard showed us all he was faster, quicker and we all talked later, he showed more power, priory hit hard with both hands, but no one ever thought he possessed big KO power in 1 hand, SRL was bigger, had better movement, and 10x smarter, in all our opinions from that incident, and everyone in Pryor's entire camp talked about it, everyone agreed that in a real fight for the money, Leonard would have knocked Pryor out within 2 -5 rounds max, that from his own camp, and I agreed then and 100% still agree Leonard via KO and not a pretty one either, he would destroy Pryor especially after that incident and he knew they lied to everyone about what had happened, it would be Hearns-Hagler all over again, Hagler hating hearns and taking his punches, then destroying him, also any talk Pryor beats hearns is laughable, as Amateurs, pryor at that time was already a fully matured and Pro ready fighter, hearns was nowhere near being the Hitman yet, he would devastate Pryor as he did Duran, and Duran Pyror, Duran Knocks him out of the universe. and again, I trained in his gym and hung out and did odd jobs for him and his camp because we idolized him and loved watching him fight, but we were all knowledgeable fight people, we knew his limitations, he was an exciting fighter with good power in both hands with good speed, but no chin, no balance, no brains, so no strategy or Ring Generalship to speak of, and no defense, against any all time great he loses.
                  Another Wildcard is the ******* he was snorting. He was clearly coked out in all his fights. If you are that heavy into the bag as Pryor was, you don’t stop doing coke on fight night. Literally not a chance in hell. Its the 80s and he got away with it easily. Pryor was coked out like nobody else as we know. This gave him endless stamina and immunity to pain. On top of these he would mix crushed asthma pills which act as a steroid to open up your airways and lungs. I figured you know all this by the sounds of it, posting it for others.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by them_apples View Post

                    Another Wildcard is the ******* he was snorting. He was clearly coked out in all his fights. If you are that heavy into the bag as Pryor was, you donâ≢t stop doing coke on fight night. Literally not a chance in hell. Its the 80s and he got away with it easily. Pryor was coked out like nobody else as we know. This gave him endless stamina and immunity to pain. On top of these he would mix crushed asthma pills which act as a steroid to open up your airways and lungs. I figured you know all this by the sounds of it, posting it for others.
                    It's a wonder his heart didn't explode.
                    them_apples them_apples likes this.

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                    • #40
                      Marquez vs Morales
                      Trinidad vs Mosley
                      De la hoya vs Winky

                      3 more match-ups I wish we got to see

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