did tyson lose power with age?

I don't think Tyson lost power, he lost his speed and ability to intimidate the way he did in his youth. He was never a one punch kayo artist anyway.

 

I dont think its the power itself you lose, so much as the ability to deliver it. Examples being Louis, and Liston. Tyson was explosive, with very quick hands, once he lost some of that explosiveness he inevitably lost part of the ability to detonate his power on the target.

 

Power is incredibly overrated by most fans, but no it didn't lose that much, maybe a bit near the end but he sparked Ettiene in under a minute who beat Brewster.

He lost his stamina to maintain throwing accurate fast power punches for more than a few rounds

 

I dont think Tyson lost his power as much as he lost his timing. I saw Tyson late in his career in the gym and he still had a lot of speed and power. He was still knocking guys out but just like in his fights he was missing a lot. For a heavyweight he still had a lot of speed power and quickness, but Tyson really never got back that excellent timing where he could use his opponents movements to setup his punches and let them come forward into them. Thats what we saw a lot of with Tyson when he was younger. The way he knocked out Spinks, and Carl Wiliams, just excellent timing combined with power and speed.

When Tyson came out of prison you saw him missing a lot. Big power shots whizzing over the top of guys heads and him missing a lot of shots. Tyson still committed alot on his punches but he just didnt have that timing down and mainly it was because of his inactivity and unwillingness to stay in shape between fights. Every trainer that worked with him after his release from jail will tell you the same thing, that just when Tyson was really getting his motions down again, he would disappear until he had to fight again.

 

Give Bailey the speed and accuracy of a prime Mike Tyson, and he'd be one of the greats. Eitherway I wasn't comparing Bailey's power to Tyson's, I was using him as an example to show that fighters who didn't rely on more than one punch don't seem to "lose" their power.

Tyson was a very, very, very sharp puncher. He obviously hit enormously hard, but there are plenty of fighters who had more raw power than him. It was his speed and accuracy that made him so dangerous. If he was as slow as a Shavers or Foreman, Mike wouldn't have nearly as many KOs that he had. But if you gave Shavers or Foreman the speed and accuracy of Mike Tyson, both of them would be far more dangerous than they already were.

Power is definitely the last thing to go, and depending on how actively a fighter remains in the gym, the raw power probably stays with them up into their late 50s or into their 60s even. As what was said earlier, the ability to land the knockout punches is what really declines.

 

Tyson was a guy who was trained to place his punches in the areas that would incapacitate his opponents. After Cus died, and he left Kevin Rooney, he wasn't trained to do that and was less effective. He still had great power, but the lack of punch placement just made him like pretty much every other slugger.

 

In the nineties,Tyson's power seemed intact. He'd lost a bit of his prime speed and became one dimensional. Relied on his power TOO much.

 

Only a little. Some boxers (like Joe Louis) begin to lose their power quite early on, others (like George Foreman) keep it until the very end. In general, most boxers only lose their power when they are totally shot, hence the adage "the last thing to go is a boxer's punch".

The science behind this is very simple: power = strength + speed. Most people, especially athletes, get stronger until about their late 30s, all things considered. So as speed declines, the boxer gets stronger which offsets the loss of power but NOT the ability to actually land the punch. Tyson is a good example of this.

In the case of Joe Louis, partly because he didn't put on a lot of muscle in his later years (unlike Tyson) he had declining speed and little offsetting rise in power. Ali put on muscle but not that much strength, which shows that strength and muscle don't necessarily go together. I think that Carl Froch punches with more power now than in his youth, so that's an example of an increase in strength which is bigger than the decrease in speed.

 

this is actually quite an accurate observation, add to that, as I said he lost the heart for it, his desire had waned!!!

 

I don't really agree that Louis lost his power. He was still a very destructive puncher all through his career, he just didn't have the ability to land his fight ending combinations that he became known for in the last few years of his career.

 

I think he lost power, for sure. He hit McBride and Williams with flush shots, and they survived. In his prime, he'd have killed them.

 

It was usually his ability to hit his opponent with multiple shots and ones they did not see coming that made him so devastating. By that point in his career, Mike was telegraphing and his punches no longer had the element of surprise that they carried during his prime.

His raw power remained the same, but his overall punching ability sharply decreased post prison.

 

He lost more than speed. He was no longer fluid. He seemed more muscle bound after he got out of prison. I agree his combinations were the key to his success.

Even in the 90s he was more or less just a bomber.

 

Yeah but look at Tyson when he faced Lewis and then when he faced Etienne. He was 9 pounds lighter and lot quicker and it showed. Tyson in the 230's was terrible. Tyson in the mid 220's was a lot quicker and a lot better even at an advanced age. Tyson was powerful but he had that speed of delivery to go along with it and speed and power are more devastating.