The Hall of Famer says Zayas has the talent to become a world champion again, but believes rebuilding his confidence must come before any return to the ring
Roy Jones Jr. believes Xander Zayas can fight his way back to the top, but says the first step is repairing the mental scars from his stoppage loss to Jaron “Boots” Ennis. The former four-division champion urged Zayas to work with a sports psychologist before focusing on another title run.
“I’m going to be honest with you. He needs to see a sports psychologist first,” Jones said on All The Smoke Fight with Andre Ward. “If he’s smart, he goes see a sports psychologist, get his mind back right.
“This is what people don’t understand about prizefighting. In your mind, if you’re going to be a real prizefighter, you got to be willing to kill or die.”
Jones argued that elite fighters must regain complete confidence after suffering a damaging defeat, adding that mental recovery is just as important as physical healing.
“You got to have a team that understands how to save you from yourself,” Jones continued. “He’s got to go back to a sports psychologist first to put that mentality back in his mind, because once that’s been broken that has to be fixed.
“A lot of time when people get broken, they don’t go back and fix it psychologically. If it gets fixed psychologically, he can come back and be world champion again because he has the tools, he has the skills.”
The comments come just over a week after Zayas suffered the first loss of his professional career when he was stopped by Ennis in their unified junior middleweight title fight at the Barclays Center. Before the defeat, the 23-year-old Puerto Rican had built an unbeaten record and was widely viewed as one of boxing’s brightest young champions.
Jones’ assessment suggests the former unified titleholder has the ability to return to the top of the division, but only after addressing the psychological effects of his first setback.
