Roy Jones Jr has warned that Mike Tyson can still hit like the best of them ahead of his upcoming return to the ring.
Tyson is stepping back into the squared circle on November 15 against controversial YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul. It will be his first professional bout since 2005 when he was stopped by little-known heavyweight Kevin McBride, and just his third time in the ring at all since then.
He has competed in two exhibitions since retiring, one in 2006 against Corey Sanders and then in November of 2020 against Jones. While the first one was a flop at the box office, the second became one of the top ten highest selling pay-per-views in the history of boxing.
Roy Jones Jr details how Mike Tyson still punches ‘like a mule kick’
Over 1.6million buyers tuned in on pay-per-view to watch Roy Jones Jr and Mike Tyson compete in an eight-round exhibition in November of 2020. The pair wore larger gloves and competed under a very limited ruleset, with the fight ending in a draw.
But that didn’t stop Tyson from landing some of the heaviest shots that Jones has ever felt. Speaking with Andre Ward for All The Smoke Fight, he said: “When you get out there and look at Mike you have an understanding of who and what Mike is.
“But you don’t realise that the little side-to-side movement that I never thought a lot of before, you really have a hard time hitting him with that. So that was probably the most fascinating thing to me, the fact that he can still dodge punches the way that he could.
“I feel like I’ve got some of the fastest hands in boxing, I’m thinking ‘no way in the world he can dodge my punches’. But he was, he was able to dodge them and I was surprised.
“The first time he hit me in the chest it was like a mule had kicked me in the chest, at 57-years-old! I said ‘oh my goodness, you ain’t going to hit me no more’.”
Roy Jones Jr believes Mike Tyson can beat Jake Paul ‘any time’
As for next week’s fight between Tyson and Paul, Jones reckons that the result will end up being up to the legendary heavyweight. The New Yorker has decades more experience, but needs to have trained meticulously in order to overcome the controversial 31-year age gap between the pair.
“If Mike is in shape enough to go the rounds he probably can put Jake out at any time,” Jones continued. “But of course at 58 or 59, however old he is his timing ain’t the same, so it’s quicker for him to get it over with fast rather than wait a long time.
“If Jake gets in and gets his rhythm then he can get the momentum and be problematic for Mike down the line. But if Mike goes out there and says ‘you know what I’m just going to go balls to the wall to get it over with’, then that’s the best thing he can do.
“If you let Jake get comfortable, he’s going to become dangerous… If Mike is telling the truth [about his training], it’s going to be tough for Jake. But we don’t know if Mike is telling the truth.”
