40th Anniversary of Alexis Arguello vs Aaron Pryor 1!

[QueensburyRules]

- - I hate when two of my favs fight, but it happened, and sadly one of my favs lost, but put up a fight of the Century against my other fav who proved outstandingly worthy of the challenge where both were forced to fight outside their usual comfort zones.

Pound for pound, punch for punch, style changes for style changes all filtered through stellar warrior instinctual minds, this fight delivers beyond all others.

Where was you mugs then?

[GhostofDempsey]

'Give me the other bottle, the one I mixed' - Panama Lewis

[Willie Pep 229]

I m still embittered. Embittered watching Arguello get hurt; embittered by the likely cheat; embittered enough that when I saw one of Pryor's last fights live (Bobby Joe Young) I enjoyed watching him get KD. Even though I knew it was wrong; that he was damaged goods by then and shouldn't have been fighting. But I chose not to care and enjoy it anyway. That's how embittered I was.

[Willow The Wisp]

I watched the fight at the home of a good friend who was a surgeon of some renown in Boston. He was shaken by the brutality of the fight but equally transfixed by the bravery and resolve of those two great, great champions, and he could not look away. Two of my favorites too, and you could fit the better fights I've ever seen in a thimble. The 80s, looking backwards was a time of giants.

[QueensburyRules]

I m still embittered. Embittered watching Arguello get hurt; embittered by the likely cheat; embittered enough that when I saw one of Pryor's last fights live (Bobby Joe Young) I enjoyed watching him get KD. Even though I knew it was wrong; that he was damaged goods by then and shouldn't have been fighting. But I chose not to care and enjoy it anyway. That's how embittered I was.

- - Addressing the "Black Bottle" controversy, a rules conversation is needed, but unfortunately lacking because of the centuries of lax rules that slowly played out into the 80s and beyond to today.

Forever in the boxing timeline, whiskey or peppermint schnapps were staple corner fortifiers. How do we know Panama didn't mix his own schnapps concoction with lime juice?

We don't, but of course Panama as shady as he was became the modern posterboy for most of boxing, where to paraphrase a witness in days of yore, "No more boiled down villainy, scoundrelism, and viciousness has ever been consecrated in so small a space."

The science says taking anything orally into the stomach requires a delayed reaction of a few to several minutes to actuate. IVs are near instantaneous as are inhalants, just think asthma mixes.

At any rate, the next round ends the fight and started off as a standoff with both lactic acid wrecked fighters not willing to commit to much more than a feinting spar, but suddenly Aaron leaps out with a left handed smash as I recall, about a minute into the fight that puts Alexis on the ropes where Aaron finishes him, a flash point of about 5-10 sec.

Nobody had even been down in this fight which is another amazing fact about it. You have to be a connoisseur of stylistic and pace changes switched up at various points by the fighters.

40 years ago was The Days Back When.

[billeau2]

I watched the fight at the home of a good friend who was a surgeon of some renown in Boston. He was shaken by the brutality of the fight but equally transfixed by the bravery and resolve of those two great, great champions, and he could not look away. Two of my favorites too, and you could fit the better fights I've ever seen in a thimble. The 80s, looking backwards was a time of giants.

Pryor had a real "Musashi" quality to his swag & style: On paper, was one thing, but nobody wanted to get in the ring with him. Musashi beat much better swordsman because of his sheer willfullness and understanding that killing someone is a direct, immanent act that is all encompassing... sword, boat oar... whatever worked best and was part of the strategy.

Fighters like Barkley and Pryer were able to hurt people... boxing was just a means to an end.