Tyson's loss of footwork/footspeed major cause of his decline?

Yes, Tyson was fantastic in 80s. Actually, he was very, very good in early 90's and even middle 90's.

99-00 (one more layoff) was decent Mike, still in shape, but lost his timing and started losing speed (Botha fight as an example).

From 2001 it was 15 lbs overweight, out of shape, 1-round stamina Tyson, who looked awful against shot Nielsen, against Lennox, Williams and even against punching bag named McBride.

Lewis - Tyson was one of the most one-sided beatings in recent HW history, Tyson looked spent after 1st round. He looked equally bad in Nielsen fight.

 

Tyson lost motivation after Spinks, for various reasons. The Bruno fight and onwards he would never be the same. The closest we got to a peak Tyson was the first fight with Ruddock. Despite being past his best he proved he could come into a fight in shape and motivated against a very dangerous opponent.

If he took Holyfield seriously, in '91, the fight would've gone down as one of the best in heavyweight history. Mike still had the motivation to regain the belts and still had that fluid movement and top notch work rate. He became static and more of a headhunter, falling in love with his power. The footwork seemed a bit stagnant and the timing and balance were off post prison. This most likely had to.do with bad habits in the gym and outside as well.


of the best at heavyweight

 

For may reasons, Tyson career was never supposed to be a long one. His boxing style was a very demanding one, and as it has been pointed, once his skills slipped a little it was all downhill...

Add to the mix his selfdestructive life style, lack of proper coaching, poor adjustment to declining reflexes, choosing to be a headhunter, etc., and you can see that even without the jail year, Tyson was not going to be for long at the top.

Actually it is kind of amazing he didn't went down earlier in his career

 

Yes, eventually it would've happened no doubt. It didn't happen sooner because Jacobs was still alive and Rooney was around keeping Tyson honest. It's a tall order to say Tyson would've kept his unbeaten streak going for a few more years because his focus seemed to wane. But you never know. With the big 90's heavyweights like Bowe and Lewis looming, it could've given Tyson motivation to be the best.

 

That is the reason I say that Tyson is the shoulda, woulda, coulda of the boxing world :deal

Sure with proper coaching and handling he could have lasted longer to the top. But we will never now. People use that "what if?" to dream of a mythical unbeatable Tyson. I, however held that against him, and it is one of the reasons I rate him just fringe ATG at the best: he was unable or unwillling to adapt positively.

Great champions should be able and willing to adapt and evolve positively when his skills and capacities start slipping down, in order to stay at the top. 70's Ali was able to change his game when he began losing speed and reflexes. So Joe Louis did.

Even Big George was able to comeback in the 90s as a better boxer, because he learned and evolved.

But Tyson actually backtracked. After Rooney and Cus he regressed. He lost his edge, and even worse he decided to become a headhunter ... a bad plan that was going to fail soon or later.

 

I agree with this post, well said :good

 

Which is all very well, but doesn't explain the loss when in his prime aged 23. Unless of course one falls for all the nonsense excuses about drinking, going with women in the build up to the fight, or any other idiocy that his apologists can come up with.

This of course works if one really is stupid enough to believe that NO other fighter other than Tyson ever used to screw women, drink booze, and take drugs between fights.:roll::roll:

 

One thing stands out with those above, they all went on to redeem themselves in the rematches. Tyson on the otherhand decided to turn cannibal for the night....

 

Worth mentioning about Tysons decline that from very early in his career (from about 88-89 onwards) he hated fighting and only did it because he needed the money. His decline was inevitable.

 

^^

This was really it. His desire to win fights (after winning all the titles) dininished and he found it difficult to train which even before becoming the youngest HW champ recall it was repetative and tedious.

Imagine you won it all, own big houses and fast cars, women just a phone call away and friends hanging with you all day, have contractual sponsorship / commercial commitments to forfill - yet still then have to motivate yourself to slip the bag or do 6 miles of 5 AM road work for the 972nd time?