Pryor was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1996, and in 1999 was voted by the Associated Press as the world's best light welterweight of the 20th century.
In 1975, he again won the National AAU Lightweight Championship and a silver medal at the Pan American Games, losing in the final to Canadian Chris Clarke.
Pryor beat future champion Thomas Hearns in the lightweight finals of the 1976 National Golden Gloves, but lost to Howard Davis Jr. controversially at the 1976 Olympic Trials.
The only two fighters who lasted the entire fight with Pryor that year were Jose Resto and Johnny Summerhayes, each losing by an eight-round unanimous decision.
On August 2, 1980, Pryor faced two-time world champion Antonio Cervantes of Colombia for the WBA light-welterweight championship.
In December 1980, Pryor rejected an offer of $500,000 to fight Sugar Ray Leonard for the WBC welterweight championship because he wanted more money.
[5] Pryor signed to fight WBC light-welterweight champion Saoul Mamby in a unification bout for $1 million.
However, the fight fell apart when the promoter, Harold Smith, disappeared amid allegations that he was involved in a $21.3 million fraud against Wells Fargo National Bank.
Smith, whose real name was Ross Fields, was later sentenced to ten years in prison after he was convicted of 29 counts of fraud and embezzlement.
Pryor signed to face Sugar Ray Leonard for the undisputed welterweight championship in the fall of 1982 for $750,000.
Pryor heard on his car radio the news that Leonard had sustained a detached retina in his left eye and the fight was off.
[9] On November 12, 1982, Pryor defended his title with a fourteenth-round TKO of Alexis Arguello before a crowd of 23,800 at Miami's Orange Bowl and a live HBO audience.
Between the thirteenth and fourteenth rounds, HBO's microphones caught Pryor's trainer, Panama Lewis, telling cutman Artie Curley, "Give me the other bottle, the one I mixed."
Coming out quickly for the fourteenth round, Pryor landed a barrage of unanswered blows before referee Stanley Christodoulou stopped it.
[10][11] On April 2, 1983, Pryor knocked out former WBC super lightweight champion Sang-Hyun Kim in the third round.
Panama Lewis had his license revoked after he removed the padding from the gloves of Luis Resto before his fight with Billy Collins Jr. on June 16, 1983.
"[15] On June 22, 1984, Pryor defended his IBF title against Nick Furlano in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Pryor defended his title against future IBF light-welterweight champion Gary Hinton on March 2, 1985.
He fought welterweight journeyman Bobby Joe Young in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on August 8, 1987.
[18] On December 15, 1988, Pryor scored a third-round knockout of club fighter Hermino Morales in Rochester, New York.
Pryor entered a no-contest plea to a charge of possessing illegal drug paraphernalia, a pipe used for smoking cocaine, which was found in his car after he was stopped by the police in Cincinnati in September 1989.
The Nevada state medical report declared Pryor to be legally blind in his left eye.