Who Deserves the Blame for Leonard-Pryor not happening?

[jrosales13]

Leo ducked Pryor, period/

You're a buffoon.

[Jim Jeffries]

I've always heard people blame Leonard, but Pryor spent his entire prime at 140 and when he finally did move up to WW, he got knocked out.

Now I read that Leonard offered him 10 times his career best payday.

Seems pretty clear Pryor was to blame.

[jrosales13]

Do people also not understand the timeline? There was only a short window for them to fight. And, Pryor turned down a career high payday.

[jrosales13]

I've always heard people blame Leonard, but Pryor spent his entire prime at 140 and when he finally did move up to WW, he got knocked out.

Now I read that Leonard offered him 10 times his career best payday.

Seems pretty clear Pryor was to blame.

Exactly... Duran wanted to fight Leonard. What did he do? Did he call out Leonard on press conferences and just fight LW's? Or did he go up to 147 and beat a top 10 WW to get/earn/force his shot against Leonard?

If Pryor really wanted to fight Leonard he would of went up to 147 and beat a WW. But, he never did, he turned down the highest career payday and he is to blame.

[sicko]

Leonard didn't want to fight Pryor, not even sure I blame Leonard, Hawk was a BEAST

Duran vs Pryor would have been great also

sure Pryor had offers on the table but it wasn't great offers plus I think Pryor and his trainers had some concerns about carrying extra weight

[Thread Stealer]

Tough to say I could understand Pryor's team saying that offer was lowball trying to get more but they didn't really have any leverage. I would also understand Pryor's team just using the situation to make his name bigger (similar to the Floyd, Margarito situation).

Really the guy trying to make a name needs to make sacrifices to make that name and taking short money is usually what it takes.

I would say 80/20 80% Pryor 20% Leonard is how I would devide up blame, Leonard to me gets 20% because he could have made it happean.

I blame both of them also, but probably more so for Pryor. Half a million was still very good money, and compared to how much more established champs with bigger names (Benitez, first Duran fight) were getting around this time, or champs with lesser names (Kalule), it wasn't an outrageous offer.

[BattlingNelson]

As I remember this match-up wasn't really considered that much. I could be wrong though. I think there was bigger fights out there. Bigger fights that got made.

I'm sure somebody knows better? When exactly was this? It would be nice to know just to see what path Leonard took subsequently.

[DR.ORGYY]

.................

[Thread Stealer]

As I remember this match-up wasn't really considered that much. I could be wrong though. I think there was bigger fights out there. Bigger fights that got made.

I'm sure somebody knows better? When exactly was this? It would be nice to know just to see what path Leonard took subsequently.

Pryor won a 140 lb. title on August 2, 1980 (the same day as Hearns-Cuevas). Leonard was between Duran fights at this time, those fights were in June & November of that same year. The Lenny Blackmoore fight after which Pryor talked about rejecting the Leonard fight was June 1981. Short time period, Leonard fought Larry Bonds in March 1981 and then Ayub Kalule @ 154 a couple days after Pryor and Blackmoore fought. So it had to have been one of those two fights that Leonard went ahead with after negotiations with Pryor fell apart.

Leonard moving up in weight to take on the top 154 lb. fighter in Kalule, three months before a mega bout with Tommy Hearns is a pretty good achievement that gets overlooked.

[TheGreatA]

Leonard said he would use Pryor as a tune-up for a possible Hagler fight and the fight was very close to happening around 1982 but Leonard had to retire due to a detached retina. Pryor actually stated his support for Leonard's decision. He wasn't really bitter at not having the chance to fight Leonard. Earlier he had also stated that Leonard and Hearns had physically gotten bigger than him and that he wanted to fight at 135-140, not at 147.

To me Leonard saying he was "afraid" of Pryor, if he ever even said that, is just him giving respect to what was an under-appreciated fighter pre-HBO Legendary Nights.