Roy Jones Jr looking sharp in training for Mike Tyson

By Boxing News - 08/02/2020 - Comments

By Allan Fox: Roy Jones Jr still has the hand speed and punching power even at 51 as he prepares for his September 12 exhibition fight against Mike Tyson. Roy’s hands look blazing fast for anyone in the current era of fighters, especially for a heavyweight.

Jones’ right-hand power and speed still look exceptional, better than a fighter he trains in Chris Eubank Jr.

Unfortunately for Jones, the 54-year-old Mike Tyson is looking better, a lot better than him in his workouts. The combination of punching, power, and the hand speed of Tyson is well above what Jones is showing.

That’s not a good sign if you’re a Roy Jones Jr fight, seeing that he’s going to need to focus more on his foot movement if he’s to last the full eight rounds without getting knocked unconscious, again.

Boxing fans aren’t giving Jones any chance at all of beating Tyson, however, and many of them are predicting a first-round knockout for ‘Iron Mike.’ For the sake of the fans, it would be better if Jones at least makes it to the fourth round before Tyson lowers the boom on him with one of his powerful shots.

Roy Jones Jr’s footspeed is looking SLOW

Where Jones could have problems is with his foot speed. His legs look slow now, and he doesn’t move the way he used to when was in his 20s. Without his foot speed, the former 4-division world champion Jones (66-9, 47 KOs) won’t be able to evade ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs) for long.

Jones is going to need as much speed as possible to keep from getting knocked out cold by Tyson during their eight-round exhibition bout because it’ll only take one mistake on his part, and he could up going to sleep.

It’s good that Roy is looking impressive on offense because he’s going to need to have something to keep Tyson off of him. But what Jones Jr needs more than anything is for his foot speed to return so that he can prevent from being trapped by the 228-pound Tyson, and knocked out.

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Tyson warns this is “seek and destroy”

“If the opportunity comes, I’m always looking for it,” said Mike Tyson to TMZ when asked if he’ll shoot for the knockout against Jones. “You have to come and see.

‘He wasn’t worried about getting hurt during his tour coming back fighting, so don’t worry about us,” said Tyson in reacting to George Foreman saying that he or Jones Jr could get hurt.

“Tell George that I love him for caring. This is seek and destroy. I’m looking to capturing my glory,” said Iron Mike Tyson.

It’ll be interesting to see if Tyson holds back or not against Jones, and carries him for the full eight rounds. We saw Floyd Mayweather Jr take the inept MMA fighter Conor McGregor to the 10th round before knocking him out in 2017, and the fans weren’t happy.

Image: Roy Jones Jr looking sharp in training for Mike Tyson

They could tell that Mayweather was taking it easy on McGregor, and many of them felt that they’d wasted their money paying to see the mismatch.

“This is only an exhibition. It’s not a real fight,” said former world champion Eddie Mustafa Muhammad when asked if there will be a knockout in the Tyson vs. Jones fight. “It all depends on the gloves they’re wearing. This is an exhibition.”

Mustafa’s comments about the Tyson-Jones Jr fight being “only an exhibition” fight won’t make boxing fans happy, as many of them are under the false illusion that this is going to be a real fight.

If it turns out that Jones Jr vs. Tyson is just a silly exhibition match with the two just pawing at each, they can forget about boxing fans ordering any of their future PPV exhibition fights.

Mike has more to lose if fans aren’t entertained

It’s bad enough that people are being asked to pay$49.99 to watch Tyson and Jones fight a simple exhibition match during the pandemic. But for their sake, they better be mindful that they’ll be shooting themselves in the foot if they don’t do this for real.

Boxing is a modern-day gladiatorial sport, and just like in the Roman era, fans watch it to see guys get put down on the ground.

There’s no escaping that fact. As such, if Roy or Tyson are planning on just going through the motions on September 12 and not try and hurt each other, they’ll be sorry later.