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Mike Tyson is not your typical 58-year-old. Actually, Tyson is not your typical any-year-old. So, it’s not yet completely clear how exactly age may affect Tyson’s boxing prowess when he takes on 27-year-old YouTuber Jake Paul on Friday night.
Nevertheless, there some key things health-wise to look out for when “Iron Mike” Tyson takes the ring at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas You might expect “Iron Mike” to show some rust. After all, Tyson’s final boxing match of his professional career took place nearly two decades ago in 2005 when he lost to Kevin McBride in a sixth-round TKO, otherwise known as technical knock out. That was technically Tyson’s last competitive fight.
November 2020 was the last time Tyson participated in any kind of public boxing match that didn’t take place on a JetBlue airplane flight. That was an exhibition match-up against Roy Jones, Jr., which ended in a draw.
Even though Tyson has been training for the Paul match, training ain’t the same thing as a real match. So who knows how long it will take Iron Mike to iron out some of the wrinkles when he first enters the ring against Paul. Plus, Tyson’s reflexes, reaction times and speed may have decreased over time with age.
Even though Tyson in his earlier years was known for his power—by 1986, he had accumulated a 22-0 record with 21 of those wins by knockout—his accompanying speed and agility combined with that power are what made him special. Will Tyson be able to unleash the same combinations in the same way that allowed him to knockout Marvis Frazier just 30 seconds into their 1986 fight? Umm, how about no. Studies such as one published in Nature Human Behavior and another published in PLOS ONE have shown that people’s physical reflexes typically begin declining in their 20s with the average peak occurring around age 24.
It’s unlikely that Tyson will be able to dodge punches and react with counterpunches as quickly as he did when he became the youngest heavyweight champion ever at 20 years and 4 months on November 22, 1986. Another physical attribute that may have decreased for Tyson is stamina. A publication in the Journal of Physiology described how people can maintain peak endurance until their mid-30s but experience declines after that.
Therefore, Tyson may have to pace himself more throughout the fight to avoid getting too exhausted should it go all eight rounds. Now, the SNAP! song lyrics “I’ve got the power” may still apply to Tyson. During his heyday, the power of a Tyson punch was estimated to be equivalent to being struck by a Vespa motorbike moving around 15 kilometers per hour or nine miles per hour.
One typically can retain youthful muscle mass and power for longer until around age 50 assuming that one remains active with weight-bearing exercises rather than descending to bon-bon eating as the primary form of exercise. After the half-century mark, though, muscle mass and strength can begin to decline, according to a publication in Sports Medicine . Nevertheless, even if Tyson’s punch has become equivalent to a slower moving Vespa, you still don’t want a motorbike of any speed running into your face.
Speaking of things of running into your face—or any part of your head, for that matter—getting your noggin clobbered does get harder to take the older you get. Think of your brain as a pickle floating in a jar of fluid with the jar being the cranial cavity in your skull. When you are in your 20s, your brain fits more snugly in your cranium.
But as your brain starts shrinking in size in your 30s and 40s, it can move around more in the cranium, assuming your overall head size has not changed, which is usually the case. Therefore, a blow to the head could result in the brain rattling around more and bouncing off the sides of the cranial cavity like a bumper car, resulting in more damage to the brain and potential tearing of blood vessels. That’s one of the reasons why you don’t see as many people head-butting each other in the workplace compared to college or high school.
On the flip side, Tyson will presumably have more experience with age. This can help him fight in a smarter manner to conserve energy, avoid direct blows to the head and choose the right moments to go on the offensive versus defensive. It’s been common for other star athletes like Tom Brady and LeBron James to alter their game plans when they get older just like you probably altered your approach to clubbing over time.
Plus, Tyson’s training regimen may be more disciplined now than it was in his younger days where he may have relied more on his natural talent. Finally, it’s not as if Tyson is fighting Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury or some other current top heavyweight boxer. That would not be a fair fight.
He’s fighting Paul, who initially became known for producing YouTube videos like “It's Everyday Bro,” and not for his boxing prowess. While Paul has since scored some victories in the boxing ring, his boxing career hasn’t come anywhere near Tyson’s. Paul did not become the first boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF heavyweight titles and eventually get inducted into both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame as Tyson did.
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