Its something which gets to me when i watch the Roy Jones exhibition. Granted it was an exhibition and nothing which resembles a real fight but maybe being order to stay clear of head shots actually helped him where he was able to pulverize his opponent with continous body attacks. In his last 10 years especially since he got out of prison, we see a Tyson who is continously head hunting and not working the body at all. What makes it worse is that he was a younger man in his 30's at the time which means he had the engine to deliver body assaults against his opponents back then. The one round i.e. round 5 or 6 in the Holyfield 1 fight where he had the most success was when he targetted Holyfields body and then went to the head via the Upper Cut. But those moments were just a mere glimpse as he had developed into a predictable one dimensional head hunter. It makes me sad because watching the Roy Jones exhibition, it showed that he still had the tools and abilities to box properly i.e. to work an opponents body and creating openings for the head shots but he chose deliberately to not apply himself properly in his final years
Good post. I agree. He had the tools to be one of, if not the best ever skill wise, but he stopped using his whole arsenal in those later years. It's as if he didn't want to be there and was just hoping for a quick KO and collect his money.
Tyson in his prime was a fighter who married his skills to his physical attibutes intrinsically. In other words, his skills were very much contingent on the physical assets he brought with him imo. Sure, there were other factors (jail time, head not in the game etc.), but when his physicality began to decline, his style suffered badly. It's hard to whip in and out based on the sheer speed of your trunk/torso at the elite level...
If your head in not in the right place, everything else suffers. From 1997 onwards, Tyson was just fighting to pay his bills. He p*ssed away so much money. Remember how he practically begged Lewis for a rematch.
