Comparing the endurance of Joe and Lennox

Joe Louis had the better chin, true he did go down in some of his title bouts. But bottom line, he always got back up to win, except in his comeback loss to Rocky Marciano, on Oct 26 1951,KO 8.

 

He was 37 years old and off for a year and took a Fvck of a beating from Vitali... 30 power shots from a hitter like Morrison is a lot. Bruno and Mercer were in good form. Briggs was a huge puncher and holds the most first round knockouts of all time. Lewis took lots of shots from lots of hard hitting guys. And I also put those two knockouts he suffered into context. Joe Louis didn’t face quite as many big punchers.. Schmeling and Walcott could both crack but neither were huge power hitters. Point being is that I don’t think it’s cut and dry as to who had the better chin between Lewis and Louis... Stating that Lennox was dropped by one punch by Oliver McCall and therefore Joe was more durable is an oversimplification at best.

 

Tua nailed Lennox with some pretty damn hard shots

This content is protected

 

You put it best in the op. A combination of his size, intelligence, and power were able to mask this chink in the Armour.

 

fair enough. But Lennox opening a cut on Vitali counts as winning the fight. He took a hammering in the six rounds prior to that and the fact that vitali suffered a cut doesn’t diminish the win OR the amount of punishment Lewis’ chin withstood.. Joe Louis at the exact same age was stopped by a man who wasn’t 6’7” 245 lbs... Louis only took a few big shots from buddy Baer in the first fight. The second fight ended in a round hence sort of like your observation of Lennox beating Ruddock before he got hit with anything. But we seem to agree that it’s close either way which I’m good with

 

The man could still take a punch. When you get hit square on the whiskers by some of the hardest hitting heavys of all time and are still standing it has nothing to do with skill or prowess

 

I wouldn't say he has a glass jaw. You don't get to where he did with a glass jaw. I just don't think it compares favorably to anyone in the top ten including Louis's but then again who's does?

 

It's a fair case but, difficult to truly distinguish between the two - mostly because of the differences in their stature, styles and the kind of hits they took. I also think that the chins of MSSRS Louis and Lewis weren't all that bad.

However, I do believe that, once Joe got over himself, after the upset loss to Schmeling, his focus, concentration and conditioning was such that his powers of recovery became much stronger. He was just more finely tuned, both physically and mentally, from that point onward.

Lennox's size, ring IQ and power perhaps camouflaged his bigger problem and that was his varying degrees of complacency.

 

Great post. Both had good durability for mine. Louis gets lambasted for his chin but it's blown way out of proportion. Lewis shipped heaps of good punches over his career.

This content is protected

 

Evander Holyfield -

BEST CHIN
George Foreman: I would say George Foreman. I hit him and I hit him a lot of times, a lot of times (Laughs.) … 17 punches one time! Lennox Lewis had a great chin. I went back and watched the fights and the people who knocked him out [did so] because he had a different mindset for them. He didn’t fight smart with them ‘cause he felt he could beat them. Everybody he pursued and thought that he could beat, they ended up knocking him out – that’s Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman. I came to respect him ‘cause I know in the last fight I buckled him a few times but he didn’t go. Mike Tyson had a good one, too; he didn’t fall when I hit him.

 

I think with Lewis it’s the circumstances of the punch.
Against McCall Lewis simply dipped into the punch and never saw it coming, plus McCall went for broke with that punch.
Although badly hurt he still got up and raised his gloves and was ready to fight on.
Against Rahman quite frankly he was a disgrace in his whole approach to the fight, and he actually appeared to give Rahman a free hit for the knockout punch which Rahman gratefully took.
In that footage you saw Lewis trading and going toe to toe with many punchers without too many real alarms, but in those instances he was mainly riding with them.
Overall I think Lewis proved he had a good chin, not stellar but certainly not weak.

 

I'd had a sense of the punches that Lewis had taken, over the course, but I hadn't seen that compilation before - concentrated leather-eating.

 

One of the things I like about Holyfield is that, when it comes to his observations on other boxers, he always seems to calmly tell it as he sees/saw it.

 

A decent chin for sure.