Slide Or Step

[StefanTosic]

When How Why > what.

You can have both. It's all about How When & Why you are stepping or sliding.

True. There's reasons for Louis to slide, the first and the most important one is that he's probably the most perfect textbook fighter ever, especially when it comes to his punching, combos and feet positioning. He wanted to be able to ''grip'' the floor with his toes in the smallest timeframe possible and and be ready to throw combos and counters, he wanted to stay in the constant contact with the floor and be ready to throw punches any time he needed to, as he never had the otherworldly quickness and explossiveness in comparison to his opponents, like Pac and Roy had.

Pac's footwork was amazing but not textbook, but he could allow himself to be unirtodox because of his quickness, plus his whole style was different. It was ment to use his superior foot & hand speed and jump in the mid range from the outside, throw the combos and than jump out or switch the angle.

Also Louis wasn't a welterweight who could jump around all the time, he wasn't as fleetfooted as Ali and his style & gameplan were not the same of Ali, nor Pacquiao.

And of course when Mayweather wants to pull counter you he picks his back foot high off the ground so that he is on the balls of his toes. Then he slides backwards waiting for you to jab.

Yeah, staying on the balls of your feets also makes your quadriceps and hips being slightly erected forward, which cuts off your reaction time in half and make you pull the trigger much much faster! I experienced it myself and mos def felt the difference.

You can make 2 guys with same handspeed and same experience stay at mid range, without moving, to counter each other in sparring, with one of them having his both heels planted on the ground and the other one having the posture you described and that guy will always be the one landing first.

Great post man. I didn't know about that oldschool trick with sliding your back foot first, although it is not tought by the coaches as it's unortodox, it makes a lot of sense, thank you!

[OctoberRed]

You can make 2 guys with same handspeed and same experience stay at mid range, without moving, to counter each other in sparring, with one of them having his both heels planted on the ground and the other one having the posture you described and that guy will always be the one landing first.

Exactly, very sound info.