By Jeff Aronow: Mike Tyson posted a new video of his recent training this week on social media for his September 12 fight against Roy Jones Jr, and he’s looking more muscular now.
The muscle memory is kicking in with the 54-year-old Tyson, and he’s bulking up now looking like he used to earlier in his career.
The powerful combination punching that Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs) exhibited in his workout, it’s going to make it difficult for the 51-year-old Jones (66-9, 47 KOs) to take for long without going down.
Jones is saying that he’s going to stay on the outside and box Tyson in the early going, and then go after him later in the contest when he wears down as he did in the last two fights of his career.
In Tyson’s defeats to Kevin McBride and Danny Williams, those fighters unloaded on him with punches when he gassed out, and they didn’t give him a chance to get his second wind.
Tyson will only be dangerous two rounds
Roy estimates that Tyson will be dangerous for the first two rounds, and then he’ll gas after that and be vulnerable.
Tyson’s explosive punching that he’s been impressing boxing fans with on his posts on social media might not help him against the wily old veteran Jones, who isn’t going to put himself in position to get knocked out.
Jones says he’ll come into the fight in the low 200s, and he expects to be outweighed by a considerable margin by Taylor, who is currently weighing close to 230 lbs.
What this fight will be is a cruiserweight in Jones taking on a heavyweight, and it’s going to be like David and Goliath when they get in there. The 5’11” Tyson may not be tall, but he’s a lot heavier than Jones, and he’s a real heavyweight.
“I’m just going to box him (Tyson) at first,” said Jones via Fight News. Stay away from him from that early onslaught. That’s when he will be most dangerous.
“For the first two or three rounds. After that, I should be able to take over as I have been active and he hasn’t been active. The longer the fight goes the better is for me the worse it is for him,” said Roy.
It would be a good idea right now for Tyson to stop smoking, and focus on his cardio so that he doesn’t fall into Roy’s trap in the second half of the fight.
Roy Jones Jr lacks the size
In Tyson’s last two matches in 2004 and 2005 against Kevin McBride and Danny Williams, Iron Mike faded by round 4 and was hammered from that point on. However, those were both tremendous fighters in the 260s and 270s. Jones won’t have that size going for him on September 12, so perhaps Tyson won’t be worse off.
It’s going to be difficult for the 205-pound Jones to wake down the considerably heavier 220+ pound Tyson to capitalize on him tiring out after two rounds.
Even a tired Tyson is dangerous, and Jones won’t be able to go straight at him in the second half of the contest when he starts to fade. With Jones’ weak punch resistance, if he tries to walk Tyson down after he disappears, he could get knocked out. Jones suffered knockouts five times in the second half of his career, and many of them were terrible KO defeats.
“So I will just come out and box early – keep my distance,” said Jones. “If I keep my distance, the safer it will be for me but at the end of the day where at some point I will have to engage and put the pressure on him. Once I get past that early storm I will have my chance,” said Roy.
Jones will have a chance of winning after the first four rounds, but it still won’t be a good chance Tyson will remain dangerous even when he’s tired. It’ll take him long to get his shots off.