Age and diminished skills led to losses in recent years to Felix Trinidad, Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather Jr. De La Hoya won his last title in May 2006, beating Ricardo Mayorga in six rounds for the W.B.C. super-welterweight title.
It's certainly likely that teams weighed his fiery outspokenness against a potentially diminishing skill set.
He retired from World Cup racing rather than continue with diminishing skills.
(Two-on-two has lost its charm over the many years — too strenuous, and too complicit in exposing one's diminishing skills).
Arenas is a prime candidate because of his bad knees, his diminishing skills and his reputation for causing locker-room friction.
After several of his wealthier, long-time clients scaled back their involvement or passed away, Lukas downsized his operation out of necessity in recent years, but the reduction in the number of horses in his barn hasn't diminished his skill in spotting promising prospects and cultivating them into star runners.
But instead of crediting Sampson's acting skill and talent for his indelible depiction of the character (whom he made absolutely unforgettable while having almost no lines!), Hollywood press diminished his skill and talent to simply "acting Indian".
Escaping poverty in the Dominican Republic as an iconic pitcher has not diminished those skills.
Krone returned to racing in 1997 and rode well at Monmouth Park, but by 1999 she decided that injuries had diminished her skills and eroded her determination.
An assortment of fadeaways, headfakes, dunks and drives, made all the more remarkable by the clear fact of his diminished physical skills.
The business travelers showed reduced mental capacity, diminished communication skills, decreased ability to concentrate and engage others, reduced tolerance levels and an increased risk of ill health.
