Who had the best chin

Patterson?

 

Cobb. Simple.

 

I'd go as far to say its very evenly matched, good list of 3 for comparison.

My pick would be Norton.

Yeah he got bombed out early on 3 occasions.. but there's no disgrace in that happening against Shavers, C0oney & Foreman who could all seriously bang.

 

I think, considering his comparative lack of size, it would be Patterson..because only Liston ever kept him down for "10",...but both Shavers and Norton should be commended as well for standing up to that newly annointed "power puncher" Muhammad Ali and not getting decked....(though in the 15th of their bout, Shavers almost was).
As a matter of fact, Shavers went 15 with Ali, and really got teed off on by Holmes in their rematch without touching the canvas....and though he lost by ko to Lyle, in all fairness, that final nuclear powered right hand to the temple that Lyle hit him with could have killed a horse.

 

Probably Norton by a hair over Patterson, it amazing how many times Floyd got floored in his career.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb and say Shavers.
Earnie was very flawed, but one flaw people point out that just isn't defensible is that he somehow had a weak chin. Shavers was stopped quite a few times, but besides the Quarry fight where he was hit with about 20 clean solid power shots, his stoppage loses were all due more to fatigue than to any chin issue. Besides the Quarry fight, just try to find one example of Shavers being dropped when he wasn't completely gassed. There is one fight this happened in when he was about 36. but that's it.

Just look at Shavers fight with Ron Lyle. He went in trenches with Lyle, dropped him, out fought him and then got stopped in the 6th after running out of gas. Lyles next fight was his war with Foreman where he dropped George twice, and hurt him on several other occasions. Shavers stood in the trenches with the same Lyle and didn't flinch. Well, at least until he ran out of gas.

 

nothing wrong with ali's chin !!

also would like to make a case for a middleweight as well ... hagler !! , you could beat him with baseball bats and he would still come at you .

 

I don't think Earnie Shavers had that bad of a chin. His real problem was "stamina", which some people around here have grouped as being the same thing, but It isn't. Norton and Patterson were the ones with truly shaky chins. Both were stopped by big punchers, but Floyd was probably decked more times and was considerably the smaller man. I might give this award to Floyd but its probably by a razor thin margin.

 

Thank you. Exactly my point. Great post. Also it seems your order is the same as mine Shavers, Patterson, Norton. Patterson's chin was also underrated.
Most of his knock downs were from being off balance. And he got up all but twice. Only 1 fighter was able to keep him on the canvas. That fighter is Sonny Liston. Sonny ****ing Liston. You need to understand something. Foreman is not just another puncher. This guy is a wrecking machine. Nobody (with the exception of Foreman), not Tyson, not Lewis not even Tua come anywhere close to this guy's punching power. If you wanted to keep Patterson on the canvas in that era you needed to be Liston or have a ****ing shot gun. Simple as that.
Gilbert Rogin of Sports Illustrated wrote: "Liston is not a notably swift and flashy hitter, but that final left hook crashed into Patterson's cheek like a diesel rig going downhill, no brakes....There are no fighters extant, and precious few mammals of any variety, that could have beaten the count. The miracle is that Patterson was able to get to his knees."

 

He wasn't on the list for comparison.

 

They weren't on the list for comparison.

 

i read it as OPs choices not questioning the forum as who is the best of the 3 , i did not see a (?)

 

Perhaps like you, I have missed something. But for the life of my old bones I can not work out how anyone could mention Patterson, and best chin in the same book, much less same thread.

 

Gotta be Shavers out of these 3. Though he was knocked out multiple times, I've seen him take better shots than the others. I can see the stamina/pacing issues creeping in a number of times.

What hurts Norton isn't that three extremely good punchers knocked him out, it's how easily they got him shelled up on the ropes, froze him in the first place, and how quickly it happened.

Getting iced, nearly in the beginning of the fight, against a bean pole light heavyweight he had 20+ pounds on doesn't help his argument here, either.