Significance of Ruddock fights for Tyson?

You're right about Neglected skills.

I thought you meant he was fading skills wise.

 

You're right about saying he should have boxed Tyson more.
Yeah, he had the skills and know-how, and wasn't faded, he just neglected to use what he had.
Change of style, yes. But a change for the worse.:good

 

I was at both fights but the second one was way more brutal, Tyson's body shots sounded like 22 cal shots and Ruddock took a unbelieveable amount of punishment but still fought to win til the end.

Tyson was definitely slipping and could not pull the trigger decisively anymore due to partying, lack of training and generally disinterested into the game , the main motivation was money.

 

Richard Steele shouldn't have stopped that first fight like that. Would have saved both fighters (Ruddock especially) the pain of the second fight.

Tyson got nothing out of that second fight anyway. Money, but he couldn't even get decent defense team in the r*ape trial, so if he had money it did him no good.

I think Tyson showed heart and toughness but mentally it probably did him no good. I've heard him say he didn't have the heart to put himself through that again.

He pulled out with an injury instead of facing Holyfield, and the prison years came along anyway, so beating up Ruddock again was a pointless win. It was only Steele's bad stoppage that gave the rematch any point whatsoever.

As for Ruddock, it paid well, but probably ruined him physically. It's hard to say for sure, but it can't have done him much good. He would have got big fights with Lewis and/or Bowe or Holyfield anyway, sooner or later. The 2nd Tyson fight just made it harder. But then I don't know what he did with his money, so I can't say whether it was worth it.
I assume he didn't do too well, since he was in a boxing ring last year, I think, aged 52.

 

Tyson was a real fighter before going into prison. He was pre programmed from years of preparation and training. He was in shape when he faced Ruddock had a lot of fighting spirit and still had quite a bit of skills still in tact. What he was lacking was his defensive skills, which in my opinion were his biggest attributes. In his youth he was so elusive he was rarely hit cleanly and he was such a good counterpuncher once he made his opponents miss, he made most of them gunshy and go into survival mode. Thats the reason he rarely wore headgear during sparring, because his trainers felt it was a false sense of security. He was never cut or missed a fight when training without head gear and it doesnt take a boxing genius to see how well he performed leading up to and including the Spinks fight.
He was somewhat of a mess against Bruno but looked pretty good against Williams before going to Japan, but you could definitley see lapses in his defense, and he was hurt by Bruno early on in the their first fight.

When he came out of prison he was technically a mess, his skills were mostly erroded, he barely threw punches in combination, his footwork was a mess, timing gone and he got hit a lot.