General consensus of heavyweight Chins.

Henry Cooper
Lennox Lewis
Wlad litschko
Lou Savarese
Earnie Shavers
Danny Williams (young)

don't belong to that list.

Cooper was easy to cut, not to KO

Lewis took some good punches from hard hitters

Wlad never went down in the last 10 years, 20 title fights

Savarese took some heavy shots from hard hitters

Shavers had decent chin to last 38 combined rounds against Ali and Holmes

Danny Williams' punch resistance deteriorated badly after brutal beating from Vitali.

 

A great chin does exist. Some fighters do simply just stand up to more punishment. Nobody understands it. Unusual thick boned specimens with natural shock absorbing, injury resistant constitutions.

I'm not sure I like the term "weak chin" though. Although it just means the opposite of having a great chin it seems unfair. If we use some naturally tough specimen as the example of the type to have a great chin isn't the opposite A real fragile weakling who would be too injury prone to even get through actual boxing training? If their bones are too thin on the scull surely every other skeletal joint on some unfortunate boxing Charles Hawtry could crumble easier too?

I think standing up to punishment has a lot to do with class levels. After all a fighter who appears a wiz against one level of ability suddenly becomes restricted when he moves up in class. He won't land with the same power and he will get caught with a lot more stuff he wont see coming. And as the saying goes..what you don't see coming knocks you spark out. Even sturdy specimens get iced if they get suckered.

Since anticipation has a lot to do with punch resistance a fighter of lower ability won't be fast enough to respond or brace himself in time once beaten to the punch.

Lesser fighters punch just as hard if you let them, it's just they run onto more things, get caught flush and give better fighters more time to beat them to the punch.

 

I think the notations about Shavers and Bobo are well added. The only time I recall Earnie going down from a single shot, he actually got up to stop Jeff Sims on the Berbick-Ali undercard, but it generally took a substantial accumulation to put him down or stop him. (I think Jerry Quarry needed around 58 punches to drop Shavers.)

Robinson-Olson I was the first stoppage loss in Bobo's career, and there's plenty of Olson footage prior to Archie Moore to show how durable he was before foolishly challenging the Mongoose.

Back to heavyweights. I don't think Cobb ever took a knockdown that was on the level, or when he was not coked up. In his 12 round PKA foray, he took some hellacious kicks from Big John Jackson without flinching, and Jackson was known for his relatively rare ability to take opponents out with his kicks. (Remarkably, Jackson won this one with his punching, while Tex relied on his kicking to try producing a knockout. Cobb actually wore down a bit from the sheer force repeatedly generated with his 30 inch thighs into his kicking. Pretty good fight.)

Some reservations about Liston's chin, as he was staggered near the outset of round three when he lost the title, and Machen not only buckled Sonny with his hook, but had Liston very actively defending against it.

For Henry Cooper, what Patterson, Folley and Ingo did to him is devastating to the reputation of his chin. He didn't have Wepner's toughness in that respect.

Where general consensus is concerned, I think more careful scrutiny of Liston is merited. A tough customer to be sure, but an underrated defense and overrated chin.

One heavyweight chin which hasn't been mentioned is that of Joe Louis, a reputation which fluctuates. Prior to Marciano though, he tended to bounce right back up with two exceptions. Obviously one was going down for the count against Schmeling, and the second knockdown in JJW I saw him resting on a knee for a few seconds before getting up, probably the most serious knockdown he took in a winning effort.

Concerning Lennox Lewis, he'll be forever branded with having lost the championship twice to a single punch. That ossifies the general consensus on his reputation.

 

I can't figure out if this is only suppose to be about heavies or not, thank to Roger Mayweather being on the list. Or not. (anymore)

 

Hey swaggie, where's Gene Tunney and Jerry Quarry in the list of great chins?

 

I was wondering about Tunney myself although he didn't fight all that many heavyweights.

 

Sorry, never read the last part.

However, was Henry Cooper considered ever as 'chinny'? If you were around then, you know better

 

And where's Tommy Farr too

 

Lol por old man i think that liston should be in the second list. He never had a top chin like chuvalo,tua,foreman,ali,mercer,mccall etc

 

Remove Vitali Klitschko and Valuev and replace with Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson.

 

Vitali proved by far a better chin than liston. The only thing that he did was trading with a no durable mediocre cleveland williams. He got knocked clean out by a shot landed by a 198 pounder. And forget the age as excuse. Foreman took monster shots from big strong top men in his second carrer

 

i often think about larry holmes when a topic like this arises.
that punch he took off shavers..it still amazes me.

arguably (or a choice of many) one of the hardest punchers ever, shavers, hit holmes harder (imo) than he ever hit any man ever that i seen him hit on any footage....he put everything into that punch, his full body weight, and it landed perfectly, if he tried 100 times he couldnt have thrown that punch any better....holmes was coming towards him at with all his weight too and the massive impact happened, holmes was only briefly, like split second, in a forward gear but he was it was his total weight impacting with that punch.......how holmes got up i will never understand...to me, even though he went down, it was an example of one of the greatest chins on a boxer i ever seen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LijnCa33Uw

 

A TL;DR unabridged list posting could have taken up the first three pages of this thread.