Solving the Puzzle of the Lomachenko and Usyk like footwork of Canizales

With the fight last weekend between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Uysk, I wanted to see how fighters in the past handled an opponent who was Lomachenko before Lomachenko. That of course was Orlando Canizales who possessed amazing footwork very similar to the likes of Loma and Usyk. Wilfredo Vasquez defeated Canizales by split decision so I just wanted to know if he did anything which could be used today against a fighter with similar footwork.

By the end of my breakdown I don’t really think it was the angles he was able to overcome on his way to beating Canizales. Vasquez did offset Canizales trying to shift to the right in the early going though. In round one Canizales shifted right and caught Vasquez with a shot off the change of angle and in response, the next time Canizales tried this Vasquez threw a couple of lead hooks and the second one landed flush. This seemed to have an effect on Canizales as he began to move in the opposite direction, moving up in weight class perhaps Canizales felt the power of the bigger man.

What this meant though was he was now moving to the direction of the right hand of Wilfredo Vasquez and with Canizales throwing single jabs whilst stepping to his left, Vasquez looked to counter the single jabs with the cross counter, which is the right hand over the top of the jab and he was having a lot of success with this.

A couple of other tactics used by Vasquez – he would look to time his jab when Canizales was moving on the bounce essentially catching him out mid movement and he also picked up on a trigger movement. When Canizales was about to jab, he would drop his hand and then shoot the jab, this window of opportunity when dropping the hand before jabbing meant that if Vasquez jabbed with him, he would land his jab through the gap of Canizales. Watch the video below to see this in action.