Does James Toney now have a legitimate claim to the GREATEST CHIN in boxing history?

I'm not sure myself, just throwing it out there to see what people think.

I had always believed that Wayne McCullough had the greatest chin ever, but now I'm considering a reevaluation of things.

Consider Toney:


- Never stopped in 85 fights spanning 23 years from 1988-2011, from James was 20 until his current age of 43

- Never stopped in any of the five weight classes he has competed in - middle, supermiddle, lightheavy, cruiser, heavy

- To my knowledge, has only been properly knocked down twice, once to Reggie Johnson at mw and once to Samuel Peter at hw. There was the semi-KD against Roy Jones, but that was purely a balance thing plus Toney didn't actually hit the canvas, just touched down and was forced to take a count

- IMO, has only been properly hurt once in his entire career, vs Reggie Johnson. Even then, he fought through it and won the fight


The one thing that had been missing was to see how Toney's punch resistance would hold up under a sustained beating, the kind of one-sided and punishing defeat that he's never really suffered.

Last week, Toney suffered that defeat to Denis Lebedev.

Knocked off balance by punches a few times, taking many many clean shots throughout the fight, Toney got shut-out on the cards but did not get stopped and did not get dropped. He proved his chin in a way that guys like Marvin Hagler never had to: when he was taking a shellacking.


Before he met Toney, Lebedev's previous 9 wins had all came inside the distance, giving him a record of 17 KOs in 22 wins in his career, but he didn't manage a KD against a shot version of Toney.

If ever there had been a time that JT's punch resistance was going to let him down, it was the other night. He was 43, looking flabby and out of shape, in there with a bigger man and a proven banger, and there were concerns that him burning off 50lbs for this fight would leave him weakened. The chin held firm.


Consider that James Toney has faced Hasim Rahman twice, Samuel Peter twice, and a peak Roy Jones, and has never been close to being stopped.



This is a guy who started out at middleweight, and at 5ft 9in is probably a natural middleweight/supermiddleweight. Even years and years past his prime, even ridiculously overweight and out of shape, the guy still stands toe-to-toe with natural heavyweights, and fights them, and never gets stopped.



I ask you: is he a legitimate contender for the title of GREATEST CHIN EVER? If not, why not?

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Making threads about boxing is my business, you chinchecking ******. **** off.

 

Solid credentials for sure. What makes Toney different is that he was a fat middleweight in his late 30s fighting against natural heavyweights, and unlike Chuvalo he has NEVER been stopped, not on his feet nor the canvas. Toney is just as legit as Chuvalo IMO.