SOOOO why did Ray Leonard DUCK DUCK Aaron PRYOR????

[Heru]

I wouldn't say duck, but that amateur loss to him didn't help much.

[Thread Stealer]

I wouldn't say duck, but that amateur loss to him didn't help much.

That was Hearns who lost to Pryor in the ammys.

[Thread Stealer]

Pryor would have been high risk for low reward I would imagine. I'm younger if I ask my mom who Hagler/Hearns/Duran/Leonard is she will respond boxers, if I ask her who Pryor is she would look at me funny. I don't think it would be in Leonard's interest to fight Pryor. Still I wasn't around then and I'm just speculating, the other posters here know more about the situation than I do.

This SI article talks about Pryor's offers to fight Leonard and Duran that fell through.

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.c...6084/index.htm

I had nothing but good dealings with Aaron," says Elkus. "Unfortunately, he's his own worst enemy. He isn't a bad kid, and he's a kid even though he's 27. I don't think Cincinnatians look at him as a professional athlete. I think they look at him as a kid from the ghetto who had the gall to say, 'I'm going to turn down a $500,000 offer to fight Ray Leonard.' Now they like to hear that Aaron had a paternity suit, that his attorney sued him, that he fired his business manager, that he doesn't want Buddy LaRosa in his corner anymore. But all that doesn't mean anything. The guy can fight. Aaron has his minuses, but he has a lot of pluses you never hear about."

Smith lined up a $50,000 payday against Antonio Cervantes, the WBA junior welterweight champion, for Pryor on Aug. 2, 1980. It was a typical Pryor fight. Cervantes dropped him with a beautiful right in the first round, but hardly had Pryor touched the deck when he was up and trying to get around the referee, who was still counting, to get at Cervantes. Pryor knocked him out in the fourth round to win the title.

"That's when our problems got real bad," says LaRosa. "After Aaron won the title, he demanded the books. His second wife, Theresa, took them over. She's a very intelligent, capable lady, and I figured we were a team again. But Aaron wasn't satisfied. He never is. He has an insatiable lust for fame, for respect; he's got to be like Leonard. He'd throw a magazine at me, yelling, 'He's on the cover.' I'd say, 'Aaron, you have to wait. All you have is a junior title.' "

Once at a boxing dinner Pryor lambasted Leonard for not helping him on his rise to the title. Leonard took him aside and said in essence, "Hey, man, nobody helped me either."

Smith, meanwhile, was working on a $250,000 fight against Saoul Mamby, then the WBC junior welterweight champ, to unify the title. But Theresa got to Pryor first and shot him in the midst of a quarrel. The bullet, a .22, went through his right forearm, grazed his chest and wound up in his coat pocket. Later, Theresa said she had shot him because she loved him, and they later reconciled. Pryor told LaRosa that the incident was LaRosa's fault, because he tried to mediate their domestic problems.

By now Wells Fargo had caught up with Smith, and the Mamby fight was canceled. The next thing LaRosa heard, while watching the television news, was that Pryor had fired him. Pryor had also replaced his attorney of the moment.

"Aaron, what are you doing?" LaRosa asked. "I've got a contract for you to fight Roberto Duran for $750,000."

"No, I don't want to fight him. My new attorney told me not to sign anything until you and I work out a new contract." So much for the firing of LaRosa.

By the time they worked out a new agreement, the chance to fight Duran—and the $750,000 payday—was gone. The new contract covered six years; LaRosa's share was cut to one-third and he no longer had any ancillary rights. Expenses were to come off the top.

"The ink wasn't even dry on the damn contract," says LaRosa, "when I found out Aaron had signed a one-year promotional contract with Don King, who was going to give him a $100,000 bonus. Then King sent me the contract to sign. I told Aaron it was a mistake, but if that was what he wanted, then I'd sign.

"Aaron said, 'But King is going to get me a Duran fight, a Mamby fight, because he's got Duran and Mamby.'

" 'Aaron,' I said, 'we had a Duran fight, but you didn't want it.' "

Pryor's partnership with King lasted only three fights. In the first, in June of 1981, he stopped Lennox Blackmoore in two. The following November he beat Dujuan Johnson in seven.

[SkillspayBills]

Leonard said it himself. Pryor was WAYYY TOO hungry for him to face.

[Heru]

That was Hearns who lost to Pryor in the ammys.

Edit: I remember reading an article where it said SRL moved up a division to avoid facing Pryor in the Olympic trials.