What is the first sign that a fighter is getting old?

You beat me to making that quote,Al :good

I can't recall who it's originally attributed to,though.

 

:good Me dad always used to say it, don't know where he got it from.

 

So its a bit like dartitis then ?

 

Hilarious !

 

Agreed , but the one thing Holmes had a problem with was convincing himself IMO that he was getting old. He would still fight anybody today at the drop of a hat , he would rather go out with his Gloves on . What year did he fight Tyson 87 ,88 ? I think it was late 87 early 88 but even then he looked good as an old boxer against an at the time youthful top tier fighter/reigning champion .
Holmes was right there on the cards as well IMO, I remember after the last knockdown he was still ready to get up for more but the ref was keeping Larry's best interests in mind . An uneducated eye would have judged Larry as running the entire fight from Mike when in fact he was doing what all the Greats did and that was adapt to the situation , same trait as Ali laying on the ropes with Foreman (WHICH WAS PURE BRILLIANCE ) .
Tyson's game was to take shots and walk through them just to get inside which was his wheelhouse . Tyson's speed was one of his greatest attributes probably making his chin look better than it actually was as he would take just glancing shots rather than full force shots during the prime I guess you would call it of his career . As Tyson's speed declined his chin went with it as his chin was more available for opponent's gloves to find a home for. Holmes out of all of Tyson's victims during Tyson's prime didn't look as if he had an ounce of fear in his eyes , while others had written him off (not all but the majority) he had no doubt in his mind that he was gonna show junior what it was all about . So there lies the mental toughness trait still present for Holmes.The end result was inevitable though.
Holmes did knock off a few notable upcomers in Witherspoon (questionable win with controversy but I think that had more to do with Larry's weight, so maybe the physical decline of muscle and or the ability to obtain it or maintain it could've been the sign of the aging process) as well as Bonecrusher, and Carl Williams in that time frame Magoo mentioned before the Spinks bologna.
I believe all physical aspects will go before any mental (unless some sort of traumatic brain injury) Not sure in what particular order ,I guess it really depends on the fighter. As with any boxer good luck telling them they're done, they have to come to this conclusion on their own, some do earlier than others but the "never quit" mentality is sewn into their soul from day one and it becomes to be honest, "who they are" . Even when they convince themselves that it's over, the frame of mind that is required to be a boxer never leaves them.
Mentally though, fighters that have the effects of punch drunk Parkinson's type symptoms from years of getting tagged ,those fighters are still able to perform gross motor skills rather than fine motor skills . Shadowboxing In-fact is part of therapeutic mgmt for fighters with parkinsons/tbe . Look at Freddie Roach train with his fighters while they bang away on his body suit , he looks to be as if he hasn't anything wrong with him but then when he gets out of the ring , he struggles with fine motor skills and daily living activities . Ali does or did the same , shadow boxed to keep up gross skills but once stopped he has the classic shuffling gait, tremors of the extremities, it's just the pathophysiology of the disease unfortunately.
I hope I didn't stray too far off topic

 

Great Post

 

His age

 

Thank you for that !!

 

This is a good explanation I remember when it happened to me I got in the ring and could not get my shots off. Not really a question of age or old it is a mental age thing fighters have shelf life's mentally and some peak early and get old early in the ring.

 

This post brings to my memory two sad endings of two fighters who grew old in the ring with the same result, Mando Ramos stretched over the top rope and saved by the 10th round bell after being dropped hard from Al Franklin, a boxer he had ko'd clearly before, and Ken Norton dropped twice and also stretched over the top rope at the last bell against Scotty LeDeoux, a tough boxer he would have taken out a few years earlier. Suddenly they can just go old like Hagler did against SRL.

 

When their timing goes...

 

When a boxer cant do the things they were really well doing before.

 

Holmes was nowhere near on the cards, he had a bit of glory for a few seconds where he started dancing and popping the jab and then Tyson dropped him on his ass a little while later.
Larry WAS running the entire fight, he had nowhere else to go. Larrys comments on Tyson was 'He hits hard and hes hard to hit, now thats a bad combination'.

No Tysons game wasnt walking through shots, his style was an aggresive counter puncher who made you miss and then made you pay. When he got rid of Rooney, he then developed a style of willing to take 2-3 to land one. Tysons chin was great, ironically it was his defense which was very poor. Watch the Douglas/Holyfield fights, in both fights, Tyson could have easily finished and lost on the scorecards, but instead he was recklessly rushing in to land the big shot and end the fight. Tyson was the aggressor in both fights, but he fought very recklessly by contsantly rushing in and getting caught, those punches begin to chip away and take their toll later in the fight.
Holmes did have fear in his eyes, Richie Giachetti (Holmes trainer) said, he saw a look in Holmes eye, that hed never seen before in any of his other fights, it was the look of FEAR.

 

Reflexes start to go.