Yeah Wass Jimmy Young was as tough as they come. First time I saw the Cooney fight I was stunned. Standing up bloodied taking a beating like that, unreal. Not in the conversation by any means, but was anyone else scratching there heads after the Wlad vs Wach fight, I know Wlad was like wtf? hit him with everything he had.
Wach has an amazing unreal chin. Not many men in history could have stood up to the kind of beating Wlad gave him in the 8th round.
Had McCall been knocked down by Sonny Banks, Henry Cooper, Joe Frazier and nearly knocked out twice by retired former middleweight using large sparring gloves, I doubt anybody would be even mentioning him in a discussion of greatest chin of all time.
Well it is also who you absorbed many bombs from, & ifi knocked OUT, & what happened when in your prime. Ali rates very well by those standards. Seamus that was a very good post. Except for the sacrilege that Shavers was not numero uno. So many said this who faced him, whether they won or lost. Lyle, Cobb, Tillis, Ali, Norton, Holmes, & whoever others that I am forgetting. I do not know if any others COULD over-commit that hard.
If you want to rate recuperative power - rate Ali highly. But chin per se - you can't just ignore the facts that he was down several times from single punches. McCall never had been down, not in tons of rounds of sparring with Tyson, and not when facing lots of super heavyweights (220lbs+; most of whom can knock anybody out if they land the right punch) during an almost 30 years long career (and still fighting at 49). And he didn't have Ali's defensive skills to protect it as well as Ali did.
That was insane it may be reason why Wach still hasn't fought since that was brutal punishment. Jimmy young is a good shout so is Jeffries who basically waded in and ate tons of leather. McCall up there. So is tyson who took many shots against Douglas all night and Holyfield. Was used up against Lewis and still hung in for 8. Holmes, Tua. Lot of good chins out there. Dempsey. Foreman.
The fight that well and truly convinced me about Ali's chin was the Shavers fight, where he got hit flush many times with absolute monster shots. No man, Ali was amazingly tough all round. Yeah he was decked and hurt here and there, but almost inhuman toughness all the same.
Like I said you can't just ignore the rest of his career, and make claim based on one fight. It happened many times in history where in singular fights boxers showed absolutely amazing durability, but then they were knocked down or out in other fights rather easily. Ali was knocked down very hard in sparring just before the Shavers fight.
Lewis started fast against a few of these guys,smartly and a few of them rocked him but a few didn't land a bomb on him based on his KO loss to McCall and Rahman I would have to say his chin failed him or his recovery was poor because he was out vs Rahman and hurt badly on shaky legs vs McCall, Briggs stunned him and he recovered Tua landed nothing. I think Lewis offense was his best protection against his questionable chin
Baer stood up to some bangers and was a solid guy, Jeff always showed strong as an OX and I supposed he took some hard shots from Fitz and Sharkey but Johnson may have been his largest foe and that fight just was not Jim Jeff but a shell of him but otherwise I agree
There was a fighter about one hundred years ago named Joe Grim people say had an iron chin. Don't know what weight class he was though. I put McCall and Chuvalo on my Mt. Rushmore of chins. Guys like Ibar Arrington deserve mention although he didn't face as many world-class fighters just Holmes I believe. Ray Mercer, Tex Cobb, Scrapiron Johnson are all up there too. Paulino Uzcadon had some beard too.
I'm hardly basing my observations off one fight. It was that fight that convinced me once and for all, but Ali got nailed a lot in his later career and often outlasted opponents through sheer toughness. The Manilla fight comes to mind...
Wach took some big shots, he is a potential great chin candidate but sometimes like in the case of Tex Cobb the chin/brain just breaks down and fails
He didn't. He went to the ring to survive and had a very perculiar and awkward style that made it difficult to catch him cleanly. He was knocked down countless times.