Lewis' chin is one of the best ever in the HWs

He can be knocked down. But he gets up, every time, recovers, then wins the fight.

 

Lennox had a c chin with great defense to protect it.

 

I gave him a grade of “B” and it appears most people have. On one hand he definitely survived the artillery of a lot of big punchers. On the other hand he was Stopped twice by men who had “ good “ power but who don’t make the upper echelon of big hitters. Overall Lewis had a fairly solid chin

 

Aside from unequivocal KO losses, people often incorporate the sheer # of KDs suffered as a metric for chin quality.

To a degree it is certainly a fair metric but it isn’t the be all end all measure with nothing more to say or without further due examination and calibrations.

If the boxer in question still arises from same and goes on to win, then that’s all it was/is - a KD.

A momentary glitch and loss of points in terms of scoring.

There is also the attribution of the KDs - I think Frazier suffered 8 of his total 10 KDs at the hands of premium power puncher, George Foreman.

Patterson might be the perfect example of how to interpret and how not to interpret KDs.

No, Floyd did not have a great chin and that impression is essentially formed from the amount of times he was knocked down.

BUT, it was only Liston who put Floyd down for the 10 count - Floyd was only stopped otherwise by Johansson and Ali.

Fighting under a ref with the sensibilities of an Ollie Pecord, even the might of Ingo’s hammer being repeatedly and sickeningly landed could not keep Floyd literally down for keeps.

If you have ever been in a fight, hitting and dropping someone with one of your best shots ONLY to see them arise and come right back at you is nearly as intimidating if not equally as intimidating and deflating as hitting someone full force only to stun them temporarily.

Imagine how Wilder felt when Fury arose from what appeared to be a clean KO? The ultimate deflation.

Fair or not, a fighter arising from a HUGE KD is more dramatic and perhaps leaves a greater, more positive impression re chin quality than a fighter who might’ve been only temporarily wobbled by the same shot.

Interestingly, Fury hit the deck at 2:23 and arose pretty much at 2:13 or a nano sec prior to.

If it was Zack Clayton of Zaire counting, he might’ve hit the count of “10” and waved the fight over.


The ref then appropriately checked on Fury’s condition - “can you continue?” and “do you wanna go?” but then instructed Fury to walk away and then come back to him to further assess his condition.

Not that it hasn’t be done before but I personally have not often seen a ref afford so much time to assess a boxer’s viability to continue. The assessment shouldn’t go so far or long as to actually and improperly to extend the recovery time generally allowed.

By the time the fight was waved back on, the clock had counted down to an almost exact 2:00 - 23 seconds AFTER Fury first hit the deck.

 

I have thought it was suspicious as hell from day one. To me Wilder should have won that fight. Many refs would have taken one look at Fury's comatose eyes and waved it off, and I doubt many would have protested.

 

Can’t argue there. If the ref was in any doubt during the normal, brief window allowed for assessment, he should’ve waved it off - not literally afford more time for recovery and his own satisfaction that the fighter could continue. In terms of a fighters health and safety, waving it off would’ve actually been giving the fighter in question the “benefit” of the doubt, if that makes sense.

 

Hassim Rahman and Oliver McCall says greetings to the creator of this thread, both kayoed Lennox Lewis to win the title.

 

Speaking of Lewis, Chins and Tua… David took several flush right hands from Rahman and didn’t go anywhere. But Rahman scrambled Lewis’ brains with one of those so badly, Lennox woke up thinking Wlad had KOed him in Oceans 11.

 

I would add Liston to the list as well. Frazier may've gotten knocked down as well but I believe he gets up and survives.

 

O. E. 11 sung by Sammy Davis Jr on the original Oceans 11 (1960) with Joey Bishop, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Richard Conte, Peter Lawford and Caesar Romero.

 

Totally agree.

The shots prime Liston absorbed from Williams were insane.

In many of his other fights, Cleve gained a justifiable reputation as a monster puncher but even moving beyond that, the early round stylistic mesh vs Liston allowed him to land possibly some of the hardest punches he ever threw.

Among other direct hits, a single right bomb from The Big Cat literally sent Liston’s head between and through the top and 2nd ropes - such was the force behind the punch.

If Sonny didn’t have the chin that he did Williams might’ve easily figured to be Liston’s bogeyman for a 1-2 rd KO loss, perhaps even in consecutive bouts. Williams certainly got his best licks in early but couldn’t take the return fire.

As it was, Liston’s granite chin allowed him to weather the early storm on both occasions to go on and coolly bomb Cleve out - however people rate Williams’ chin, the shots that saw him off in both fights were still notably powerful.

Frazier? Oh yeah, if you can reason Joe to even be put down by boxer “X” in the first instance, you would have to equally reason that Joe jumps right back up to continue - Joe definitely earned the right to that “projection” during his actual career.

Funny, Foreman said he laid some of his hardest punches ever on Ali in Zaire. I disagree.

Said punches (= hardest punches landed) were bottled up and laid out on poor Joe Frazier who still kept arising from same.

Just imo, IF Ali got hit exactly the way Joe did in Jamaica, I can’t confidently say that Ali could’ve kept arising as Frazier did. Joe’s resilience in both physiological and mental terms was amazing.

 

Don't tell Choklab of Cleveland Williams, you will never live it down. Ha Ha.

 

I think Chok actually harbours deep appreciation and respect for The Big Cat - some people just express their affections in Freudian ways. Then again, as the great man himself said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The great man of course being Bill Clinton. Just a joke Chocman, please don’t come after me.

 

I thought that it was Monica of the Lewinsky who thought and felt it in a rather smiling way. Ha Ha, Ho Ho.

 

I agree. Had Liston had even an average chin, he would've likely lost at the very least the first bout.

If Williams chin was half as bad as people here make out to be, he wouldn't have lasted half as long as he did. At times he not only took bombs from Liston without being hurt, but immediately returned fire giving better than he got.

I've always noticed that as well. Foreman hit Frazier with some horrifying shots. Some of the hardest punches I've ever seen land. This was because of four things (ranked in importance)

1. Foreman's maneuvering of Frazier into the perfect range for his shots. This was perhaps the most important part of a masterful gameplan. Whenever Frazier would come inside, Foreman would grab Frazier's shoulders and physically maneuverer him into the perfect line of target.

2. Frazier's style. Walking into the eye of a tornado was never going to turn out well for Frazier. But he actually did seem to have some success before Foreman employed the tactics I mentioned above. One other thing less mentioned Foreman would sometimes feint with the jab, anticipating Frazier would duck and then would nail him with tremendous uppercuts. A gameplan he seemed to have learned from his mentor Liston in his bouts with Patterson.

3, Another thing which is almost never mentioned, and little more than a personal theory is Foreman's lack of hand speed (relative to previous opponents such as Ali and Ellis at least) ironically seemed to aid Foreman and catch Frazier off guard. When Frazier would slip his punches and return to position Foreman's punches would either still be coming and nail Frazier, and sometimes even when Frazier successfully slipped the punches, Foreman's hands would still be around Frazier, throwing off Frazier, disrupting his rhythm causing him to be caught shortly after, or making him vulnerable to Foreman's manhandling.

4. Frazier's conditioning. Frazier did seem to slip somewhat after the pyrrhic victory two years prior and didn't seem to be in the best condition. He came in overweight, looked sluggish, and didn't even seem to be faster than Foreman tbh. He took him for granted imo, looking ahead to Ali not even considering Foreman to be much more than another body to put down on the way to a rematch with Ali (not unsimilar to Tyson's treatment of Douglas ahead of his bout with Holyfield).

5. Frazier not rolling with the punches. Frazier took Foreman's punches flush and didn't even try to roll with the punches to deflect and reduce some of the power of Foreman's punches. I have no idea why. If you look at him early in his career, he used to do an excellent job at it.

This article, the day after the fight lists many of the things I mentioned Clipping from The Spokesman-Review - Newspapers.com

Ali never really got hit the same way as Frazier because he would deflect or roll with the punches (something Frazier failed to do as mentioned above) and more importantly used the ropes to absorb much of the power off Foreman's punches. Even so he still took a tremendous beating by his own admission (I think even more than he let on tbh, and one that very likely contributed to his decline, and condition later in life.) and was pissing blood for a month afterwards.