Yeah, it was an era of midgets, right? Just using your definitions. And funny that cavemen of Ali's era suddenly became modernised enough in middle age to compete with almost modern giants. Crazy world.
"The fact they were 40+ heavier is completely irrelevant when you take into account the specifics of their careers."
On a more serious note chin is less about your size and more about HOW you are built. Price was huge but he had a glass chin because he had a long-ass neck. Guys with tough chins are usually compact-built guys with thick and short necks and a big head. Plus so many people here are underestimating the effect of good defense. I assure you Usyk would also get messed up if he took a full-force left hook to the back of the ear by Andy Ruiz or a haymaker directly on the chin by Dubois. He’d just never get caught like that in a million years.
So? Lerena also has a combined total of zero stoppages over good heavyweights and less than 50% KO rate. He hurt Dubois so badly he went down, then took two subsequent knees. Dubois is in no way durable. Certainly not more so than a Cobb or Chuvalo who were much smaller than him.
Yeah, with a 48% percent KO rate against nobodies Such a hard puncher that he went the distance more than 10 times vs 4th rate guys that weighed less than 200 lbs. Dubois getting knocked down 3 times against this dude in the first is totally an indication of a great chin.
In fairness to Ali he took a hell of lot more flush shots than WK who's style was based on avoiding getting hit even though in likelihood WK's average opponent punched harder and was 30 pounds bigger as you say and was possibly more likely to be on PED's. But it's true though a fighter who fought as many big punchers as Wlad that size for as long as he did (nearly 70 fights) was bound to get stopped at least a few times. I would argue even most elite fighters would have been stopped more even.
Ali got dropped by Henry Cooper and Sonny Banks, obese Buster Mathis had him hurt early. You guys are talking about these people as if they are comic books characters. This is real life. These are the biggest guys of their time throwing punches at each other. Lerena regardless of his KO rate was a 231 lbs professional boxer. A guy like that can hurt anyone and drop anyone if he lands good, and he landed some of his best shots on Dubois. It happens, even the greatest suffered from it. I know, I agree with you on the whole size vs durability thing, I just don't like this superhero-esque view that a boxer getting hurt by somebody with a low KO rate automatically makes them chinny. Like have you seen the punch Usyk KO'd Dubois with? Not even McCall could take something like that without a reaction. People like HWs for this reason, anyone has a shot at winning here.