How important is the ability to analyze an opponent before a fight

It's certainly important with some fighters, but others didn't need to.

 

You can tell either Floyd or Roger watches tapes and makes a gameplan. Either way everytime he uses a gameplan from the offset. Against Marquez whos open to jabs/left hooks he gets jab happy from the start, using pressure fighters in sparring before Hatton and showing off his right elbow block of the left hook and uppercut counter.

Watching tapes and finding weaknesses to focus on while looking to minimise your opponents strengths is massively important. Just dont expect your opponent to necessarilly make all the same mistakes when you fight him

 

It isn't that important if someone else is doing the work. Mayweather doesn't study tapes of his opponents for example because it will probably lead to him over-thinking like Greg alluded to. But as long as the trainer analyzes it opponent obviously then it doesn't matter. The fighter's job is to get in their and execute the gameplan to perfection, not create their own.

 

Very Important. Thats how you develop a game plan for the fights. Eddie Futch was a master of this. He could find things in his fighters opponents that were capitalized on many of times. Norton was told to jab with Ali because Ali always brought his hand back away from his face and Norton gave Ali fits for 3 fights So a keen eye watching tape and picking up those things are very important in forming a fightplan.