"he is in the argument for the greatest junior welterweight of all time. He was the most intense and ferocious fighter and the most indefatigable fighter in the 15-round era in the 80's with all of those killers. He was a killer amongst killers. There wasn't a guy that was more ferocious and intent with the gas tank and the fire that Pryor had. His career was cut short because of outside of the ring things, but as far as head to head, there's not too many guys as far as a pound-for-pound sense 140 pounds down that you would pick to beat Aaron Pryor; maybe 3 or 4 in the history and that's about it. Aaron Pryor is a true, true great fighter," stated world-class trainer Stephen Edwards, who shared his memories of Hall of Fame legend Aaron Pryor. Check it out!
PC: We lost another legend of the sport; Aaron "Hawk" Pryor passed away. What are your thoughts on him as a fighter and his accomplishments?
SE: I mean, he is in the argument for the greatest junior welterweight of all time. He was the most intense and ferocious fighter and the most indefatigable fighter in the 15-round era in the 80's with all of those killers. He was a killer amongst killers. There wasn't a guy that was more ferocious and intent with the gas tank and the fire that Pryor had. His career was cut short because of outside of the ring things, but as far as head to head, there's not too many guys as far as a pound-for-pound sense 140 pounds down that you would pick to beat Aaron Pryor; maybe 3 or 4 in the history and that's about it. Aaron Pryor is a true, true great fighter. It's a shame that he didn't have more longevity and he didn't get bigger fights because once the stars starting coming around in the 80's, like Camacho and Whitaker and Chavez and Taylor, Pryor was kind of already burnt out by then. He missed those kind of guys. He never really had a chance to move up. He was kind of small for Leonard and Hagler and those guys. His legacy is already great. In my opinion, he is the best junior welterweight ever; head-to-head, as far as legacy, it's tough, it'll probably be Chavez, but who could beat who on their best night? I'm not so sure anybody can beat Pryor; Mayweather, Pacquiao, Ike Williams and Duran got arguments on possibly being able to beat him. Maybe even a Carlos Ortiz, but I don't know. Guys hovering around that 35-40 pound range, Pryor is a tough out. I don't know if I could pick anybody to beat him. I don't know if I could pick anybody to beat him around those weights except for maybe Duran; '87 or '88 version of Chavez had a great chance, Carlos Ortiz, and maybe the 2009 version of Pacquaio. It would be tough though, man. Pryor is a great fighter, man.
PC: He had a great chin, good pop, intensity, and just a ball of fire. What do you feel was his greatest asset?
SE: I think his relentlessness. The worst feeling in the world, Perc, is to be tired; for somebody to take your oxygen away. I'd rather be hungry than to be tired. I would rather be dizzy than to be tired. You can live weeks without food, days without water; you could only live a couple of minutes without oxygen. He took your oxygen away. The fact that he was indefatigable and the fact that he could fight at that pace for that long with that kind of ferociousness at the top level, this wasn't no amateur fight, no 3-round fight, we talking about 15 rounds with him jumping on you like you stole something from his mother. That has to be it. His relentlessness! These guys say they are pressure fighters, man, but you watch Aaron Pryor from the Antonio Cervantes fight to the second Arguello fight and all of the fights in between, that's pressure, man. That's his peak. That's his 3-year peak. His peak wasn't that long, but if you watch his peak and all of those fights in between, Lennox Blackmoore and Dujuan Johnson, that's pressure, man, and people don't want to deal with that kind of pressure. He was different from a guy walking you down and that kind of stuff. This guy is coming full guns blazing all night long. It's very difficult to train for that.
PC: Given everything that you've said about him so far, do you feel he has been given his just due or is he another fighter that we probably didn't talk about enough when he was doing his thing?
SE: He came along in an era with so many great fighters. Ring Magazine did an article on top fighters from each decade and I think he came in #5 or #6 in the 80's. He came along at a time when there was Hagler, Leonard, Hearns, Duran, Spinks, Holmes, Tyson and Chavez. You're talking about a real golden era in boxing. In my opinion, the 40's and the 80's are the two best decades in boxing. If he fought today in HD with these junior welterweights walking around, first of all, nobody would fight him. He couldn't get a fight. And I'm not even trying to insult these guys, but they wouldn't fight him. There is no way they would fight him. They would be asking for drug testing and all kinds of stuff. If people want Pacquiao to get blood tested, they wouldn't go nowhere near Aaron Pryor. I think he gets his just due. He probably gets historically underrated, but people from the 80's know who he is. But some of the problems that he had was his fault. Being out of the ring and not losing his title in the ring and some of the outside activities, after the second Arguello fight, he fought on, but he lost his status. They gave him the IBF belt after they formed the IBF, but it wasn't the same when he was the WBA champion. I think he gets his just due; he's an all-time great. Historically he's not going to be where a lot of guys are because of his fall off, but Pryor was a great fighter, man. That's all I could say. If he fight anybody his size in a pound-for-pound sense, those fighters that hovered between 35 and 40, you could only pick 4 or 5 men in history over Pryor in head-to-head competition and I'm not even sure if they could beat him. He was that good in my opinion.
PC: When you watched the first fight Pryor had with Alexis Arguello, because that was his most significant and memorable fight, what did you take away from that fight?
SE: I think it was just his coming out party because everybody that knew about Pryor knew he was the deal way before that fight. I remember when he fought a kid, Lennox Blackmoore, and he had Ray Leonard's old trainer in his corner, Dave Jacobs. People don't realize this, but him and Tommy Hearns both won their titles on the same day. Tommy Hearns beat Pipino Cuevas that night and Aaron Pryor beat Antonio Cervantes that day. So if you saw Pryor before the Arguello fight, you knew that he was an animal. Because back then, the way PBC is now, guys fought on regular TV and you would watch him like, "What the hell is wrong with him." That's what you would think that something was wrong with him. I remember he fought this tall light-skinned kid, Dujuan Johnson, and he destroyed that kid. So you knew that he was the real deal; it was more of a coming out party. But at that time, [Wilfred] Benitez and Arguello were the two guys, if I'm not mistaken, that had 3 titles in 3 weight classes. Nobody had done it for awhile. Those were the guys throwing it back and forth around the same time and Arguello was going for his fourth and that would have put it out of reach for a little bit until Leonard and Hearns and Duran did it later on. I'm not going to say I was picking Pryor to beat Arguello; I was kind of young at the time, but I knew Pryor was a really good fighter. I knew he was special and a little bit different than everybody else. It's just that some guys, for whatever reason, don't get the push and marketability of other guys. And Pryor was one of those guys where he was a great fighter and he turned out to be a little bit of a star, but he wasn't a superstar back in the 80's like he probably should've been. Looking back on it, I think he should have been bigger, but there were some guys whose star shined brighter. Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini was actually a bigger star than Pryor was. If you were back in that time, you knew the difference. It's a little bit of a shame. I actually met him at a Ring 8 meeting a few years ago and he was a little bitter about that.
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