He only moved up to 140 because he didn’t see a shot. At his best,..he mows almost anyone at that weight. Limitless stamina, quick of feet and hand. And power out the ass
Pryor was a great fighter, and will always be one of my favorites, but he doesn't mow down anyone at 140. He's overrated when people say that. Whitaker made a one-stop at 140, but the way he looked against Pineda, he outclasses Pryor. Napoles never won a title at 140, but he was a beast at 140. He beats Pryor. Duran fought a few times at 140 in non-title fights, notably against Villa. He beats Pryor at 140. Carlos Ortiz actually was the junior welterweight champion BEFORE he was the lightweight champion. I personally think Ortiz beats Pryor. I could continue...
I think you are seriously underestimating Pryor. Outside the fact that he was so fucking offensive that he left his chin up in the air and was susceptible to flash knockdowns…he had no weakness. Otherworldly cardio,..great speed and underrated boxing ability. A 1982 Aaron Pryor would be an animal that none of the great lightweights and Jr welters had never seen before.
Ortiz has a much deeper resume than Pryor. He was a brilliant counterpuncher, and he was a better infighter than Pryor with a better boxing brain. Explain how Aaron would "butcher" him?
Ortiz was definitely a greater lightweight than he was a junior welter but that’s largely because he became a better fighter after holding the junior welter title. I love Pryor too, but like X says, he wouldn’t butcher Ortiz. He might possibly beat him but who knows. But Ortiz has the far stronger resumé overall. If you want to be brutal, you could say that Pryor really only has two noteworthy scalps - one over a faded Cervantes and one over an Arguello who was at least 5 pounds above his best weight and who was not as good as he had been even a couple of years earlier. That’s a harsh way to view Pryor, in my opinion, but what is less harsh to say is that we don’t know as much about how he handled top-level opposition as we do about Ortiz, who, at his lightweight peak, was beating the likes of Joe Brown, Ismael Laguna, Sugar Ramos and Flash Elorde, among others.
Ortiz, while he didn't hit as hard as Arguello, was a bigger and physically stronger man than Arguello. Aaron wouldn't have been able to just bully him, and on the inside Ortiz was far better.
Hard to say with guys like Pryor. Similar to someone in a different way (Roy Jones Jr) Due to his highly unorthodox style it is definitely possible Pryor could've just mowed down a few all time greats. I compare to Roy in the sense that I can see Roy totally shutting out McClellan, Ward, even someone like Hagler... but those fights are hard to envision because his style was unique. Pryor may have been able to bulldoze Ortiz, Tsyzu, Whitaker even etc. I wouldn't totally count him out except against someone like Chavez / Duran. Feel like he matches up horribly against those two.
Roy Jones mow down Hagler? There was a time people thought Hagler was going to get mowed down by an undefeated 25 and 0 25ko young knock out artist and Hagler wrecked him. John the beast Mugabi. Jones mowe down Hagler ptffff...dont think so.
If you had just stopped at "Jones wouldn't mow down Hagler" then it would have been fine, cause Jones wouldn't mow down Hagler. Hagler is a threat to any middleweight. You killed the whole post when you compared Roy to Mugabi.
Aaron Pryor was a beast at 140 and one of the most exciting fighter of his era but he was nowhere near unbeatable at that weight class IMO.
My bad I kind of jumped the gun after reading the first paragraph. You make a valid point if a semi retired Leonard with a detached retina could out box Hagler it's not out of this world that Jones could out box Hagler. I dont agree but its no crazy to think that.
Fair enough :) Yeah I think mythical match-ups are hard to say. Definitely wouldn't have thought Hearns bombs out Duran. No way would I see Roy Jones winning nearly every second against James Toney. I always felt like Hopkins didn't match up well with Tito or with Kelly Pavlik and he obliterated both.
I think at the time we all thought Tito was a bad match up for Hopkins. I was one of those idiots who thought he would beat Hopkins and knockout Roy ...boy was I wrong.
I thought Pavlik would beat Hopkins but would have difficulties and there was very little chance he would get a KO. Bernard would get buzzed early, then revert to his cagy tactics looking more to survive and set traps than actually win. Turns out i was right. The problem was is i predicted the Kovalev fight instead of the Pavlik one.
