Aaron Pryor

Aaron Pryor
Data
Birth Name	Aaron Pryor
Weight class	Light welterweight
nationality	US-american
birthday	October 20, 1955
place of birth	Cincinnati
Date of death	October 9, 2016
style	Left delivery
size	1.69 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	40
Victories	39
Knockout victories	35
Defeats	1

Aaron Pryor (born October 20, 1955 in Cincinnati , Ohio - † October 9, 2016 ) was an American boxer.

childhood

Pryor was an illegitimate child. When he was eight years old, he was molested by a priest. At the age of 14 he moved out of home and lived more or less in the training hall.

amateur

Pryor completed 220 amateur fights with 204 wins and 16 losses. In 1975 he won the lightweight silver medal at the Pan American Games in Mexico. He beat Thomas Hearns as an amateur, won the 1976 Golden Gloves , but lost twice to Howard Davis and failed to qualify for the Olympics. Davis later won the gold medal.

professional

Pryor turned pro in 1976. He first boxed in the lightweight, but received in 1980 in the next higher weight class, the light welterweight, against the highly respected but old Colombian Antonio Cervantes a title chance at the WBA in Pryor's hometown. Cervantes hit the ground, but Pryor won by knockout in the fourth round. Before the fight, Pryor had sent Cervantes a photo of him lying in a coffin.

The typical Pryor style was very intense, punchy boxing, but not from the half-distance typical for this style. Instead, he was mostly prancing a little beyond the reach of the opponent's leading hand and then went forward in and out, as is only usual with counter-boxers. Even Pryor's most typical punch, the uppercut with the leading hand, is rarely seen.

He defended the WBA title several times, being against Dujuan Johnson and Japanese southpaw Akio Komeda each on the ground. Two fights against Alexis Argüello , who came from the lower weight classes and was favored 2 to 1 by the bookmakers, but Pryor was not up to the light welterweight division, became famous . In the first fight his coach Panama Lewis gave him a drink from a dubious bottle; "The one I mixed earlier," he said to a helper. Much has been speculated about what was in the bottle. In preparation for the rematch, his second wife left him. He attributes part of his cocaine problems to this. He changed coach and hired Emanuel Steward . Lewis he had promised never to box against the legend Roberto Durán , who was a brother-in-law of his.

In 1984 he accepted the newly introduced IBF title. More and more, his alcohol and drug problems were in the headlines. Sugar Ray Leonard said on camera that he did not want to fight him. After a fight exchange of $ 1.5 million for the second Argüello fight he was now offered $ 100,000 for the fight against Johnny Bumphus. So he resigned in 1985 at the age of 27 and put down his titles.

In 1987, however, he made a comeback, but lost by knockout against Bobby Joe Young, the first and only defeat of his professional career.

He made three non-title fights until 1990, but was no longer in shape and finally ended his career for good. In 1991 he was detained for six months for drug possession. In 1996 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame .

Most recently he worked as a pastor and trainer ( Tim Austin , at times Larry Donald ).

Others

Aaron Pryor has three sons who are also boxers.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cincinnati boxing great Aaron 'The Hawk' Pryor dies at 61

Web links

• Aaron Pryor in the BoxRec database
• official homepage

predecessor	Office	successor
-	Light welterweight boxing champion ( IBF ) June 22, 1984–1985	Gary Hinton