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Former four division world champion Roy Jones Jr. was very impressed with the in-ring performance of Mike Tyson. (Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Triller)
Tyson, 54-years-old and retired from the sport since 2005, returned to the ring on Saturday night at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.
The former undisputed heavyweight champion fought Jones to a split draw in their eight round exhibition bout.
While Jones, 51-years-old, was the younger man and continued to fight for 13 years beyond Tyson’s retirement, he was outworked and appeared exhausted by the mid-way point of the fight.
Jones believes that he did enough to win – despite the majority of the public scoring it wide for Tyson.
“Of course, everybody’s always gonna feel like they won the fight,” Jones said. “I thought I won the fight, I thought I jabbed, moved around, and kind of controlled the pace better. But I took a draw with Mike Tyson, how could you get mad about that?,” Jones said.
“He’s throwing more power punches anyway, I’m throwing more jabs and other punches, he landed more power punches, so it could go either way. I’m cool with the draw. I hear him talking about how he want to do it again, but he’s a big ol’ dude. He weighed 220, but he’s more massive than 220, trust me.”
Tyson is planning to continue forward with more exhibition fights.
According to Jones, Tyson is physically capable of fighting anyone – even with a much younger opponent in a fully sanctioned contest.
“Mike can fight anybody if he just keeps going and stays in shape like he’s doing now. Because it surprised me that he was able to go them eight rounds like that, so with him going eight rounds as strong as he was, he’s capable of fighting anybody. Truthfully, people are going to have problems getting out of the first couple of rounds with him. That was the hardest part is getting past them first two or three rounds,” Jones said.
“If he catch you, you’re gonna have problems. Like I said, I was feeling everything, so I now that he’s a really exceptional puncher still and he can do anything he wants to do. For him, it makes sense to do it a smart way, but he can do anything he want to do.”