Boxers with better chins than you would think.

De La Hoya's chin was questioned earlier on but his two stoppages losses came from a body punch and a prolonged beating when he was already past his prime.

 

Norton was the kind of guy who seemed to be able to handle anything up to the very hardest punchers.

If you can take Holmes and Ali to a decision you have a pretty decent chin.

He's the type who could probably handle Holyfield and Bowes shots, but not Tyson or Lewis.

 

Michael Moorer has a rep for having a bad chin but the reality is, he was only knocked out by Tua and Foreman. There is no shame in that considering they are two of the biggest punchers in history. Sure, Moorer got dropped a lot, but he almost always pulled himself up and fought on. At the end of the day, he was a lightheavy fighting heavyweights. Not to many 175 founders successfully moved up to Heavyweight and had the success that he did.

 

Vito Antuofermo was stopped five times but never counted out. Four of the stoppages were due to cuts and the other came on his feet 12 seconds from the final bell when Maurice Hope stunned him and swarmed in the 15th round to win their EBU tilt.

Vito fought punchers including Bennie Briscoe, Eugene Hart, Matthew Hilton, Alan Minter (twice) and of course Marvin Hagler (twice) and was rarely down. Hagler had him on the canvas once in their 19 rounds and it came when Antuofermo couldn’t see through the blood in his eyes.

To me he was an iron chin with, unfortunately, tissue-paper skin.

 

Terry Norris get the glass jaw rap a heck of a lot for a guy who really, when you look at it, was only stopped a few times and knocked down - maybe half a dozen, by my count? Twice in Brown I, once in Santana I, once against Mullings, once against Waters, and once against Jackson (stopped standing against Boudouani)

That honestly isn't such a damning track record for somebody that fought ranked contenders pretty much nonstop from like '89 through '97.

Not to mention, most consider Julian Jackson among the hardest hitters ever p4p - so, that's pretty exculpatory. What's the major glaring issue in terms of being stopped in his prime, then? Simon Brown? So what, Brown wasn't Jackson level but he wasn't a feather-fist either.

 

Thomas Hearns has that rep.
But his legs seemed to be his biggest issue to me.

 

Felix Trinidad. He would get knocked down usually early in fights but always got up fighting hard. His recovery was exceptional. In the mid late rounds his chin seemed really solid. He took shots without blinking.

 

Have to admit, of the times I’ve seen Mayweather clocked hard, it appeared that he still took the punches quite well.

 

Yeah Norton gets undue criticisms for his chin.

I will say though, for what he could take, you might’ve extrapolated that he could’ve taken that much more - of course with more damaging effect but at least proportional to the chin he did uphold.

However, with Ken, he could take, let’s say, 7/8 out of 10 power but just a notch above that he became completely undone, losing all semblance of the ability to ride out the storm - once badly hurt, it was a one way slippery slope.

Even after Foreman executed the final KD with 5 absolutely crushing punches, although not viable to continue, Norton still actually arose before the count of 10 - not sure but I think it was the same story vs Shavers.