Some on this forum like to express a narrative that Felix Trinidad was flat footed and really easy to figure out . Well that is news to me. What a total load of BS! I would like to see that opinion expressed by any coach amateur or professional.
I don't have a problem saying he was flat footed or that he was easy to figure out. The problem was being able to capitalize on figuring him out. Not many could do that. You knew going in what you had to do, doing it was entirely another matter.
So by your very definition, Trinidad isn't easy to figure out because he is implementing his game plan and not allowing the opponents.
Flat footed, yes. But, at his best, he had underrated defensive ability to go along with a superb delivery system and that made the task of figuring him out to be pretty damned hard.
I don't know. I think he was pretty one dimensional its just that that one dimension was a hell of a dimension. That's no knock on him. Thousands of fighters would have been lucky and proud to have that one dimension. Not sure what you mean by "hard to figure out" because guys couldn't beat him. You can go into a fight knowing exactly what a guy is going to do, that doesn't mean you can beat him and it doesn't mean you haven't figured him out. Some guys are just faster, stronger, have more stamina, hit harder, or whatever. I don't think Rocky Marciano was hard to figure out, beating him was another story. Same with Joe Frazier, same with Foreman, same with a lot of guys. Punchers often fall into that category because they so often rely largely on their power. If you can handle their skills, speed, etc but not their power you have a problem. I think Joppy, Vargas, DLH, etc had Trinidad pretty well figured out I just think in the case of Joppy and Vargas they couldn't handle his power. In the case of DLH I think he had Trinidad figured to a "T" but couldn't handle his stamina. Its not like Trinidad was tricky, or fancy, or brought anything unusual to the table. He was a stalking guy and they didn't call him "creeping death" for no reason. He essentially walked guys down but he was fairly predictable, its just that, like I said above, knowing what he was going to do and how he was going to do it was a far cry from being able to stop it or stay one step ahead of it.
Agreed, its like a football team that keeps burning you on the same play, you know what they are doing from the moment they line up but each block is made and all skill players execute to perfection I remember having a wrestling coach who would sit us down for film sessions ****yzing greats and he had Cael Sanderson the 4X champ and Olympic Gold on with one of his undefeated NCAA career matches and he tied up and ankle pick, next match tie up ankle pick next match tie up ankle pick. Coach laughed and said does anybody watch film? Its the same move every single time. Some people are just great at having perfection in only a limited scope of the game but that level of skill and execution and focus just cannot be beat even if you know whats going to happen there is nothing you can do about it
Great posts. Greatness doesn't have to be complex. He was stationary and used short steps because he punched like a train. He could back up most guys with an effective flurry and had awesome finishing skills. Boxing is about efficient movements, so why waste energy if you can keep an opponent at the end of your range and barely move in the process. Trinidad was very accurate, that right hand was very deceptive plus his timing especially over an opponents jab was a thing of destructive beauty, plus his two fisted attack was varied and not predictable at all. Having good fundamentals is not basic. My old amateur boxing coach used to say: * Breaking the rules is not what makes you special. The greats break the rules because they are special. and * A boxer enters the ring with everything he is and ISN'T
