Via Ken Hissner: There have been very few fighters who retired when they were at the peak of the fight. So let’s talk about those who just get back and forth.
Go back in time, James J “The Boiler” Jeffries, 19-0-2, at the time and a former heavyweight champion, retired in 1904 undefeated and forced back in 1920 and gained more than 100 pounds. His pastor one Sunday said, “we have a coward among us who will not fight back for his race” or something in effect to fight with. first black champion as they were called back then in Jack “Galveston Giant” Johnson, 49 years old -5-10, heavyweight champion.
There were 16,528 attendees in Reno, Nevada, when Jeffries was stopped in the fifteenth round of a scheduled forty-five inning.
Another is the WBA and IBF lightweight champion Aaron “Hawk” Pryor from Cincinnati, Ohio. He was eventually stripped of his titles, possibly due to eye problems.
I thought Pryor made a brief decision at the Olympic Trials, losing to Howard Davis, and in an interview with Davis years later, I told him that, and he wasn’t too pleased. about that.
Pryor is managed by the King of Pizza in Cincinnati, Buddy LaRosa.
In August 1980, he defeated the very talented Colombian Antonio Cervantes to win the WBA title. I feel Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran go from 135 to 147 to get past Cervantes fighting; that’s how good he is. In December, he was offered $500,000 to fight “Sugar” Ray Leonard but wanted more money, so they never fought. I heard from two of the 1976 Olympic athletes that they had witnessed Pryor and Leonard’s match at the Pan Am Trials and felt that Leonard was the best of him.
In April 1981, Pryor was offered $750,000 to see Duran, but his attorney told him to postpone due to a new manager so the fight never happened. Like many other boxers, Pryor eventually returned due to lack of funds, and with these two bouts never happening, he might not have returned if he had taken them and won.
In March 1985, while champion Pryor defended his IBF title and won a decisive match against Gary Hinton of Philadelphia, 23-2-1, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and suffered 36 -0 and retired from boxing.
It will be twenty-nine months after Pryor returns and fights Bobby Joe Young, 29-6-1, who weighs 148 pounds and is stopped for seven rounds. I remember talking to former champion Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini about who beat Pryor, and he didn’t think it was Young, so I called someone with access to the computer and verified it. who, and Mancini is not. Not too happy to know I was wrong.
Pryor would have three teamfights after his first loss to average opponents, winning all three, retiring in December 1990, 39-1 with 25 saves.
I met Pryor years later in a men’s room in Atlantic City at a boxing event. I just said hello, and that was it.
Those are two of the most notable fighters I recall from memory, but there are certainly others.
