they called him the untouchable and for
good reason
nikolino locha once sent a man flying
into the ropes without ever having
touched him
like a human double end bag locha
possessed next level timing and head
movement that made him nearly impossible
to hit
he won the junior welterweight title by
frustrating his competitors so much he
quit between rounds lochia would end his
career with a staggering record of 117
wins out of his 136 fights
it's actually a huge pet peeve of mine
when fighters execute good head movement
but don't use it to set up any counters
sometimes they'll even let themselves
get put into a bad position wasting a
number of opportunities to counter
however locha did do this but he was so
good that his head movement almost
became a weapon all on its own
serving to frustrate and tire his
opponents
his head movement was so advanced so
pristine that he didn't even really need
to combine it with footwork he could
just plant himself in front of his
opponent and dare them to hit him
and in the end lochia's head movement
never left him in a bad position because
like floyd mayweather
was comfortable in all positions even
those that would normally be considered
abysmal to most boxers
for example both mayweather and locha
were happy to willingly go back into a
corner
even walking themselves there if the
opponent insisted and just like
mayweather loche could get away with
this because of his deep understanding
of head movement and the philly shell
defense
what this meant was that locha was never
at a huge disadvantage whether he was at
long range
mid-range
or close range
any position any stance locha had an
answer to any punch
and despite having a ridiculously low ko
to win ratio locha is still far more
entertaining to watch than the vast
majority of knockout artists
and pretty much for the same reason as
you watch a tightrope walker
so without further ado let's break down
loch's defensive tactics to see exactly
what made him so untouchable
loch's defense began and ended with his
ability to effortlessly manipulate
distance in any direction the way that
he could move over under around or even
into his opponent's punches it almost
seemed like he knew what his competitors
would throw before they did
one of the most powerful ways that locha
truly confounded his opponents was not
to evade but instead to close off lines
of attack
and he did this by moving his head
towards his opponent's punches both
stifling his opponent's assault and
shutting down any follow-up blows
moving into punches is incredibly
counter-intuitive and many beginners
struggle with it as they naturally want
their head to be as far from their
opponent's punches as possible
but locha is the perfect example of how
this tactic can greatly reduce the risk
for a boxer
by moving in and positioning his body in
specific ways locha only left one or two
openings that his opponents had as a
reply
and this in turn made these punches
easier to predict and avoid
of course lucha didn't simply walk into
his opponent's punches he moved inside
of them to achieve specific positions
for instance loch's first tactic was to
duck in and press his shoulder to his
opponent's shoulder this cut off space
for their attack from that same side
drastically limiting their offense
sometimes he would even roll his
shoulder directly into the opponent's
rear hand attacks almost like an
advancing shoulder roll
in this instance loch's lead shoulder
would be pressed against the opponent's
rear shoulder however this did leave
some room for looping rights and loche
would sometimes have to spend his right
arm controlling his opponent's left so
it figures that loch's favorite position
was to place his lead shoulder against
his opponent's lead children left to
left from this position locha both
blocked his opponent's view and
momentarily smothered most of their
weapons
unfortunately one of the few openings
that was still available was loch's left
temple
but fortunately he knew this and had the
perfect response ready
since i mentioned the philly shell
earlier it should come as no surprise
that locha had an absolutely beautiful
shoulder roll and counter
as the opponent's punch came in locho
would shrug his shoulder up and turn his
body to deflect the punch away and then
return a hard counter
like james tony
bocho was an expert at tailoring his
shoulder roll to deal with any kind of
punch
if you've ever seen the boxer attempt to
shoulder roll but get caught by an
overhand it's likely because they only
know how to shoulder roll crosses and
don't really understand the nuances of
rolling different kinds of punches
by leaning back at the correct angle
lochia created the perfect slope with
his body to let opponent's punches just
slide off
this nuance is one of the reasons that
philly's shell is such a hard system to
learn but locha was all about nuance
so after rolling his opponents right he
of course chose a well-tailored punch to
follow up with be it a rare hook
cross
or uppercut
locha also employed this same smothering
tactic with low line head movement as
the opponent came in he would drop low
and run his shoulder into his opponent's
hip once again this completely cut off
several avenues of attack
and once again locha preferred to cross
over his left shoulder placing it
against his opponent's left hip
from this position his competitors had
barely any room to operate realistically
all they could do was try to readjust
through footwork
or attempt a lead hook or uppercut
but with barely any distance to build up
momentum these attacks often lacked
power
baloch's counter from this position
didn't
he liked to take opponents unaware
popping up to deliver a powerful left
hook
although he usually used the hip
position to transfer to even better
positions
lotia would build on this position by
sliding his head from his opponent's hip
up to the outside of their rear shoulder
and this was a very advantageous angle
like a duck under and wrestling lochu
could come up from behind his opponent
both smothering their work and forcing
them out of alignment
muay thai's most untouchable fighter
lordzilla
uses the same tactic to escape corners
today and like lordzilla loche would
shuffle away to either side whether
escaping to the inside
or the outside
the opponent was forced to readjust
their stance giving locha all the time
he needed to exit to mid-ring
or counter-attack
during any given exchange locha could
employ one or all of these tactics
so we've covered what locha did but now
is time to cover how he was able to do
it
most fighters would find themselves
running their heads into punches even
attempting to emulate lucha
so how the hell did the man get away
with embarrassing high-level fighters
it all has to do with what in my opinion
is the single most important element of
fighting
timing
and when it comes to locha his timing
wasn't all about natural reflexes locha
was arguably just as good as joe frazier
and completely getting inside of an
opponent's rhythm
like the perfect dance partner locha
could move with his opponent with little
to no delay as if he knew what his
opponent was going to do even before he
did it
matching his speed and position
perfectly locho would transform into the
mirror image of his competitors staying
in sync as if he was their shadow but
this shadow boxer could hit back
the fact is many times locha did know
exactly where and when his opponent
would strike because he had already
baited them into moving precisely how he
wanted them to
all he had to do was wait to spring the
trap
and the key to any good trap
is bait
in between evasions lochia would move
into a position where he had a clear
line of sight on his opponent and from
there he would pause
this slight pause both gave the opponent
a tempting target and allowed lochit to
look for the subtle movements of his
opponent's body that would signal what
punch was coming next
most boxers developed the ability over
time to notice these telegraphic signals
but by resetting positions to give
himself a clear line of sight to his
opponent's body after every evasion
lochim maximized his ability to pick up
on these tells and incentivized his
competitors to strike at that exact
moment
if you're having trouble noticing these
mid-evasion pauses try noticing when
locha makes a small movement before an
even bigger evasion
it's a lot like a swimmer coming up to
breathe before diving back under
smothering an opponent's attacks to
limit their offensive options to a
handful of predictable punches keeping
his opponent in a clear line of sight in
between evasions pausing to bait his
competitors into punching
when and how he wanted them to so he
could better predict those punches these
were the tools in loch's bag of tricks
and by combining them he was able to
pull off some truly insane incredible
stunts
he could evade punches by turning his
head
letting them skim past his cheek
or he could tilt his head letting the
punch just craze his temple
or he could move with his opponent's
punches staying just ahead of them
this is a level of precision very few
fighters have ever achieved muhammad ali
and canelo alvarez being a few
while his lack of power and limited
offense stopped him from becoming as
great as he could have been he may well
hold the title of having the greatest
head movement of all time
but i'm curious what you think so let us
know in the comments who you think had
better or just crazier head movement
to learn the tactics of locha and other
great fighters you can check out my
books on defense
footwork and power linked below from the
modern martial artist this has been
david christian wishing you
happy training