Who's the toughest emeffer/sob you've ever seen???

Juan Roldan
Bobby Chacon

 

I said IF he had a glass jaw — it’s assumed he’s a tougher guy than some others because he took a lot of punishment … but without that iron jaw he wouldn’t have been able to take so much punishment. I’m saying having a great chin isn’t an indicator of toughness.

 

In real time, I’d have to say, Ward, Gatti, Katsidis and Marquez…film I’d have to say Haggler, Marciano, Basilio Fulmer Lamotta and Graziano

 

Foreman mowing over Frazier and Norton. Terrifying mother****er.

 

Tex Cobb , definitely.

 

Not mentioned yet:

JULIO CESAR CHAVEZ

Although Marciano is a good shout for fighting with the split nose. Haglar, Holyfield and All very legit.

Frazier for getting up six times against Foreman.

Paz is a good call for what he did outside of the ring. The doctors told him he wouldn't walk again, and he came back to the ring. Much respect. He told his doctor "you don't know what kind of a man I man."

 

Archie Moore. The way he got up from 4 knockdowns to stop Durell was incredible. And Durell was 29 while Moore was in his 40s.

 

Coming back to this thread now and thinking about it the toughest guys are probably the guys that were not even World Champions, guys like Marion Wilson for example.

 

Eubank Sr

 

Dwight Muhammad Qawi, loved that evil grin. I just watched his fight with Foreman last night and didn't do too bad despite being obese, he bounced some hard shots off of George's head.

 

I think the first story is the thread winner so far. It's tougher than any professional boxer needs to be, actually, since you probably shouldn't continue fighting with a broken-in-half jawbone. Pointlessly, self-destructively tough.

Any toughness level beyond that remains impressive, but is unnecessary and basically irrelevant to the sport.

Can any example top that? I can't imagine one would, except maybe if there was somebody who realized he was literally starting to die in the ring, and kept going anyway. (That, too, would be an excessive amount of toughness relative to what was necessary.)

EDIT: Terrell fighting on against the GOAT when Ali had (accidentally?) jammed his eyeball into immobility is also pretty tough, but still doesn't reach the ridiculous level of toughness in the Ring story.

EDIT 2: @McGrain made a similar point when we discussed whether the Filipino boxers in the 1920s were tougher than the ones today. He argued that even if the 20s guys were tougher, the current guys have already reached a level of toughness that getting even tougher is basically irrelevant to performance. I tend to agree.

 

Kid Gavilan would step into the ring ...and just whip somebody’s ass

 

Holyfield

 

A prime Jeff Fenech, I think. Super tough dude.
Also, some journeymen...can't think of anyone offhand at the moment, but I'm sure we've all seen some tough journeymen take a beating and keep coming over the years.

 

Realistically many of the toughest are probably journeymen and opponent types who mostly do it very hard.