Iron's thudding power and USS' shaky chin = Gassiev is dropping Cunningham eventually. The problem lies in Cunningham's excellent powers of recovery - you have to really work at keeping him down. Many tried and just one succeeded (and that's a fight Cunningham already should have won twice over - via KO and DQ)
Cunningham was a decent fighter, he would have a very realistic chance of winning. Gassiev was nothing special.
i dont think either are anything special, would be close imo The Sly Bacon might of been able to out point the aged Russian
Cunningham was a very good proven Cruiserweight with longevity at the top. With wins over the likes of Marco Huck, Krzysztof Wlodarczyk., Guillermo Jones, Wayne Braithwaite. Fury's haters try to dismiss him lately cause they are obsessed with hate for Fury. If Fury had never fought and beat him they wouldn't be trying to minimize Cunningham. Gassiev was a ****ing beast at Cruiser though, I'll go with Gassiev but it's close.
Cunningham has a solid chin. He was never knocked out at Cruiserweight and he fought all the best guys. (and only once at Heavyweight to the 2nd best Heavyweight of this era)
Yes but he did get dribbled off the canvas many times in his career. Thing is, like JMM he kept getting up. They are two foremost examples of "sub-par chin but excellent recuperation". Chuck's right that Steve likely would go down multiple times against Murat.
And I'd still class Marquez as having a good chin. I reckon he'd go down once (or maybe twice), 7 or 8 times no way. Imagine if someone with an actual bad chin like Ismayl Sillakh had faced all of Cunninghams opposition, he'd have double figures of KO losses.
I think we agree in all but semantics here. It's possible (but rare) IMO to have a bad chin but to still be incredibly resilient and difficult to stop.
Probably more difficult to fight like that in the higher weight classes. Pacquiao was a big puncher (especially at 122 and 126), but there is only so much power you're going to generate out of a frame like that. Gassiev isn't going to have any issues being limited by his frame. He will have Cunningham on the canvas gasping for air.