Could Aaron Pryor Have Beat Alexis Arguello Without The Black Bottle ?

He was fading a bit before getting the bottle, I think. He was ahead, though, so who knows.

Anyhow, if you cheat like that you don't get to say "i would have won anyway". Because there would have been a very easy way to prove that - BY NOT CHEATING.

 

Unfortunately that victory is tainted because of the bottle. Pryor's trainer was a sociopath and he himself was a drug user. I don't trust either of them.

Maybe he still beats him without it, I don't know. It's true he won the second fight too but by then Arguello had the fight beaten out of him.

 

Has it ever been ascertained what was in the bottle?

 

1st Pryor was winning the fight
2nd nothing taken orally and going through the digestive system, would've worked that quickly, or the 3-4 minutes left in that fight.
3rd, there was a 2nd fight, which is conviently forgotten by " The Magic Bottle" theorists, Pryor beat Arguello even more convincingly, and without Lewis and he was given random drug test before, and after the fight and monitored during it.
Look, Pryor was simply the better Jr. Welterweight, not a better fighter overall, or historically, Arguello, would've defeated most Jr. Welts in history, as he would prove late in his career against B.Costello when he won the championship.
Pryor was simply the better man at that particular weight limit.
To his credit, Arguello could've choose to fight Saul Mamby who was the WBC Champ, and won a portion of the championship.
He choose to fight the much better fighter Pryor.
Both men died a little ( or alot) in the ring that night. Until something can be proven with real evidence, not theories, rumors, and opinions, let Pryor have his greatest day.
He deserved it.

 

Yeah, he would have still won.

He had a three point lead on two scorecards going into the 14th so even if he’d have lost the last two rounds he should have come out with a split decision win. Arguello would have had to score a knockdown and a big final round to take the title.

Would he have finished the bout as spectacularly as he did in the 14th? That’s hard to know when we don’t fully know what he was given in the corner but he did seem to come out at the start of the round with renewed energy.

 

Well, I don’t think it was water!

I believe Panama Lewis said it was peppermint schnapps, which even if that was true, is an illegal substance - water being the only thing boxers are allowed to drink between rounds.

I don’t blame Pryor for it at all, and I’m pretty sure he would have won regardless so it’s probably overblown within the context of the fight outcome but it’s a controversy that hasn’t ever been fully resolved, mostly because Panama Lewis was a pathological liar. But…. within the context of Lewis’ more significant transgressions - most notably the Luis Resto-Billy Collins fight - the black bottle controversy is probably relatively minor.

 

No way to tell. But Pryor should have been stripped of his belt

 

I believe electrolyte drinks are allowed in some jurisdictions. Anyway, didn’t Pryor test clean after the fight?

 

Nope, the tide was turning Arguello would have won if not for the help.

 

Don't believe they were tested at all.

 

I think Pryor was going in the ring loaded long before the Arguello fight. I don't think he would have beat DuJuan Johnson without benefit of the magic fighting powder and no doubt the black bottle was an aid in his comeback that night.

Pryor was always a cheat, no matter how "great" he was. Always saw the Arguello win as exceptionally tainted.

 

It's impossible to say with any surety what would have happened without the black bottle.

What we can be sure of however is that Panama Lewis was beyond dodgy and the victory is certainly tainted. I mean Panama ended up in jail for heaven's sake for taking padding out of his charges (Luis Resto) gloves vs Billy Collins and we know how that ended up. Resto admitted years later that Lewis not only took padding out but he also wrapped his hands with medical plaster and wet it, using it as a layer in his hand wraps. He had also taken the padding out multiple times before. He also said there was a betting plunge on him. Lewis should have been hung.

Pertinent to the thread is the fact that Resto also admitted Lewis used to crush asthma tablets and mix them with water (the one i mixed) so Resto would have greater lung capacity late in a fight.

The rematch is irrelevant. Arguello was never going to come back and be the same again after that late round assault in an already grueling fight that left him unconscious for 2 or 3 minutes, particularly at that stage of his career.

 

According to boxer Luis Resto, it was tablets of asthma medication broken up in the water that when taken, increased lung capacity.

The Truth Behind Aaron Pryor's Black Bottle (youtube.com)