ATG Middleweight Chin Tier list-The Top Forty

He does - only masked by his extreme elusiveness.

There is an argument of course that, since he was never beaten, let alone KO'd at MW, he had a super sturdy chin in that division. But his LHW resume does inform us that his chin is not 'Titanium' and it would be a stretch to label it as 'Iron', having crumbled beyond timely recovery against Tarver.

Jones = 'Average'

 

I'm leaving the 'Solid' door open for others and it's not unreasonable to assign him that tag, due to his unblemished record at MW.

I cannot quite get there myself, mind. The sheer image of Jones' collapse at the left hand of Tarver prevents it. The Johnson KO doesn't help the case and neither does the much earlier KD against Del Valle. None of the shots involved were haymakers, in my opinion.

I feel certain that the more skilled and heavy-handed MWs in history would have had a fair chance at putting Jones on ***** Street, if not to sleep.

 

I know we're not supposed to extrapolate a chin using another division's data, but you kinda have to with Jones, don't you?

Jones did ship a bit of punishment from Tarver in the first fight and did take Ruiz's shots pretty well at heavyweight. When it cracked, it fractured, but up until then (when he was over 15 years into a pro career, mind) he'd only gone down once. I get average, but leaning solid myself. Don't see it being any worse than Nino's, at any rate.

 

Toney hit Jones with some good stuff in their fight. I rewatched it recently and was surprised how he was getting to Jones with overhands and hooks. Jones had a solid chin at MW. I place Jones right in the middle of solid. His athleticism took a lot of steam off of shots, but he was clipped well by a number of fighters and made them look ineffectual for the most part. Jones killed his punch resistance through manipulating his body to the extremes, getting back in there with a guy who was too strong for him in his diminished state, and his reflexes and style betraying him.

Like Nazim said: when the athleticism goes, the teaching comes out. Roy was taking hell shots flush on a compromised body after 40+ fights. It is not unheard of for a fighter with a durable chin to suffer a KO and become a KO magnet (Chuck Liddell from MMA stands out)

 

RJJ is possibly the most difficult to assign thus far, because not only was he barely hit at MW, he was barely hit during his prime at any point.

Being KO'd by a big LHW, aged 35 and possibly weight drained, doesn't mean he had a weak/average MW chin.

Nor does being KO'd by other LHW+ sized punchers aged 35+.

However, he didn't take enough power punches at MW to prove his chin was above average either.

At Middleweight ill guess solid, but have no problem with a guess of average.

 

Jones was good at not getting hit, but eventually when he did ship punishment his chin blew apart. He's lucky to have an "average" chin.

 

The fact Reggie Johnson put him down and had him seriously shaken is good reason not to go Titanium.

Toney's chin improved as he went up the weights and he may well be Titanium at every other weight he fought at. It might have been the weight draining down to 160lbs that made him a bit vulnerable rather than chin issues per se but we have reserved Titanium at middleweight for the likes of Hagler (who walked onto that bomb from Hearns), LaMotta ('nuff said), Tiger, Canelo and GGG. The Johnson KD, for me, excludes James from this level of company at middleweight, even though his chin stood up at higher weights far better than their chins would have, imo.

I hope that makes sense.

 

Hopkins and McCallum=titanium

 

Toney's chin did not improve as he went up in weight but his defense did. It is well documented that he struggled tremendously to make 160 which I think was more of the issue than his chin. Hell, Dave Tiberi had him hanging on for dear life in the twelfth round of their middleweight fight and he was not known as a puncher. Having a Titanium chin does not mean bullet proof. These guys are still human.

 

I'd give Jones a solid.

Sure, he didn't get hit a lot, but he was still hit and guys like Tarver, Ruiz, Toney hit hard enough to hurt most middleweights. All three managed to land clean on Jones (especially in Tarver I) and Jones was mostly fine. Sure, the shot from Tarver was a beauty, and Jones wasn't equipped for something like that, but I think what really caused the decline in durability wasn't his reflexes, or the weight drop, but the punch from Tarver simply ruined him.

You don't go undefeated as long as Jones did without having at the very least, a serviceable chin.