With a recent win over Francesco Patera in Montreal, Dzmitry Asanau has firmly established himself in the chasing pack of lightweight contenders. Already ranked No. 13 with the WBC heading into the bout, victory boosted him inside the sanctioning body's Top 10 upon its April ratings release.

But in a more practical sense, the ease with which he scored the win begged the question of who can catch The Wasp?

For those who appreciate smooth boxing and deft footwork in particular, the two-time Belarusian Olympian Asanau turned in a beautiful display, disarming the indefatigable Patera inside a ring at the Montreal Casino notoriously on the smaller side of permissible dimensions. One judge gave Patera two rounds, perhaps simply for his determination, while the other two scored the fight a clean 100-90 shutout over ten rounds.

Asanau was given his insectile nickname for his buzzy, floating movement in the ring and quick, stinging punches, and showed his best attributes against a European-level stalwart in Patera all night long.

“He's got some of the best footwork out there in the world, really, and he's got that sniper jab. Dzmitry is not the the strongest puncher but he's got some snap so like, you could tell after the first round if you looked at Patera's face that the jab was there and it was going to be a long night if he didn't have any solution,” Asanau’s trainer Samuel Decarie-Drolet told The Ring. “Imagine if you're in a 24-by-24 ring. Like, are people will be able to touch him? And he can do that for ten more rounds.”

Decarie-Drolet, along with mentor Marc Ramsay, are part of the Eye of the Tiger brain trust that identified Asanau as a potential fighter to be fast-tracked to the world scene. Ramsay initially described Asanau to promoter Camille Estephan as “a smaller Dmitriy Bivol,” which Estephan said was “all he needed to hear.” The 28-year old Asanau, who holds amateur victories over the likes of Andy Cruz and Murodjon Akhmadaliev amongst his 101+ wins in the unpaid ranks, was still actively competing in the amateurs as well until 2023 and made a stop in the IBA Pro ranks as well.

There are, of course, fighters who are lifelong elite amateurs without either the conviction or interest in pursuing a professional career in earnest, and the question was whether Asanau would be one of those, or one of the fighters more like his former opponent Cruz who would make the transition rather seamlessly.

In Decarie-Drolet’s opinion, it’s the latter, and the transition is nearly done. Like a house that has some nice-to-have finishing touches that could be completed but is ready to move into nonetheless, Asanau’s camp feels as though he’s ready to compete with the big shots, but that they’ll utilize the time until that phone call comes to work on perfecting minor elements.

“I don't really think it's about time. It's mostly about who he's going to be facing and how complete is his toolbox. At the moment, it's pretty complete, but we still need fine-tuning. He's still got a little amateur style. I want him to be able to sit a little more on his punches because he's got very good power. When he's doing strength and conditioning, he's an amazing athlete, but you don't really see it in the ring because he's moving so much,” said Decarie-Drolet.

In order to better assess the timeframe to maneuver Asanau within, Decarie-Drolet specifically asked Estephan for Patera as an opponent for his April 10 bout, given that Patera had shared the ring with the likes of Keyshawn Davis and Gary Cully. Though Davis also dominated and even dropped Patera, Decarie-Drolet puts his fighter’s performance on par with the lightweight titleholder’s against Patera in 2023.

“I think we did better than all the other losses that Patera had to his record if you take Keyshawn Davis away, you know? He dropped him and stuff like that. But I saw in certain moments, a fight that was a little more competitive with Davis, because (Asanau) was kind of playing with the jab and the angles, was never in danger. Davis was pressuring and stuff like that, but because Davis was pressuring so much sometimes there were more exchanges where it could have been dangerous,” said Decarie-Drolet.

The guys are watching for sure. The gym where we are there's lots of talent, so everybody's watching each other and they're pushing each other to evolve and after sparring, you know, they talk - they're like, 'Oh, when you did that, it was amazing' and uh, 'oh, you caught me uh, like three times with that punch, uh, it was very good so you know, they try to to help each other and to push uh in the same direction, so everybody could evolve.