Lettuce be honest, Lucas is still quite crude

No, as a pressure fighter he's very skilled. He rolls with shots and moves his head subtly, his chin is tucked into his guard, he keeps one hand up while throwing with the other, he sets up his shots very accurately (the straight right setting up the left hook up top against Peterson by making him move into it), he turns into his punches, throws them straight, positions his body well on the inside, counters well over the jab, and cuts off the ring well.

He's very skilled. Power alone ain't **** if you don't survive yourself or don't land flush, and he finds a way to do both against very good fighters. Is he a master boxer or defensive specialist with incredible versatility? No. But you don't have to be slick or a stylistic chameleon to be very skilled at what you do.

 

That's because you don't know what you're watching. You're right, Lucas isn't a pressure fighter who throws a lot. That's why I like him. He has a great chin and great power, so of course he'd pressure you, but he doesn't want to go throwing mindlessly like Maidana or Rios.

He comes forward showing good defense and looks to hit you where and when it counts. He sets punches up, counterpunches and feints.

I mean damn, he knocked out Dallas Jr with a pull counter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3C5Yf6KxqQ
[yt]P3C5Yf6KxqQ[/yt]

 

Lucas is one of the best pressure fighters I've ever seen. He's the best I've seen since Dwight Braxton. He's a special fighter.

He doesn't have to be a skilled boxer. He has his own skill set that he excels at. No one can deny that.

 

How do you fight Judah, olsegun. Alexander and Peterson without getting hit if you have no boxing skill?

 

Right. Nothing crude about that.

Fans today are starting to confuse being slick as a prerequisite for being skilled.

 

His defense and timing is his best attribute.

 

yeah yeah don't have to be slick to be skilled. GGG has some pretty good skills himself and he's another pressure fighter.

Some people may look at me weird, but I also think Leo Santa Cruz showed some good skill in his last fight on the inside. He'd turn and switch angles against his opponent and mix his punches in perfectly from the head to body

 

He's very skilled as an inside fighter. Great posture, good positioning of his head on the opponent's shoulder, good side-stepping, accurate combinations. If he has any problems it's his defense closing the distance, but not as much when actually chest to chest.

 

yeah when he's in the pocket, he's great offensively. He's admittedly working on his defense though. I haven't seen him vs a mover yet. I think he fought one toward the end of last year on CBS, but I missed that fight

 

That's when the phenomenon kicked into overdrive. Stopping two hard as ****in nails guys like Soto and Ajose got things bubbling, but that... atsch ... albeit a lesser opponent, was an INCREDIBLE KO. Everything about it just :yikes -- What a thunderous counter. It was the way he dropped like a ton of bricks that iced it. He didn't even get a chance to land that type of shot on Lamont and still dropped him three times.

 

Yeah, some head movement would do him good. A mover would trouble him, he tends to walk forward a lot. But he's real young and already so good. In time.

:yep

That's when the true danger of his punches shone through. It wasn't the best opponent, but that took a backseat to the fact that he had the power to drop another human being like that with one touch.

 

Yeah, he's got the stuff that captures people's imaginations and that's a powerful tool. Judging by Schaefer's post-fight reaction and Haymon scooping him up, it looks like they've realized he's someone it would do good to really get behind. This is his year, and it feels imminent. I think Danny is going to get it worse (than Peterson). Maybe not as quickly, but there's no way I can bet against him. Not when I thought it would be the easier fight prior to Peterson. We don't even know what his true threshold is for punch resistance - and it could be judged as pretty damn solid already - combined with the fact that his technique is showing continued improvement, he isn't all that easy to hit anyway and Danny will be there to track without much hassle.

 

I think Marcos Maidana beats Matthysse.

 

This is the same thing I was thinking TS, Lucas gets a good showing and everyone goes nuts.

Lucas can't box at all.