I consider Jake Lamotta to have the toughest chin of all great fighter. He had good defense but it did not prevent him from taking tremedous amounts of punishment from a one Sugar Ray Robinson. Lamotta was stopped a few times in his career. Most people do not care because compared to the toughness he showed, most men know they could not stand up to what he took from the guys he took it from. Sometimes I hear a about a fighter who had a "great chin" because they were never stopped or dropped and it caused me to wonder if that person ever took a real hard shot from a hard puncher in mulitple fights over a career of great fights. Usually I come up with no. Lets take James Toney. He has never been down, maybe never been hurt serious. Sounds like a great chin...but, Toney is known to be a great defensive fighter who a fighter can rarely get a clean punch on. I have watched a few of his fights and they all look like wars but, they all have the opponent missing a ton of shot and Toney countering. After a career of not being hit hard and often, I say him and fighters like him do not deserve to be mentioned with the Lamotta's, Ali's, and Leonard's. Yes, I mentioned Leonard. This is a fighter who fought tons of punchers and was never seriously in danger of being stopped despited taking some heavy punches and punishment from the them. Louis. Louis was flashed a ton of times and buzzed a few more but it took Schmeling all night of constant hammering blows to finally put Joe out. Those are a few surprize names of guys that I think took a reasonable amount of heavy punishment over a career and came up fine. Having a great chin does not mean that you never get hurt or even stopped. It means that you consistantly withstand heavy punches over a career and recover from them quickly. Margarito, Mayorga come to mind. Frazier kept getting up after Foreman unloaded his best stuff. Crazy! Willard! These men have battle tested chins. Most heavyweights would not have been getting back up from what these men took. Guys like Whitaker and Mayweather are guys who I think never had to deal with constant slamming. Hagler is noted for having one of the best and I tend to agree but, I think Hagler's skill was so great that he never took much in the way of punishment in his career. He was a master of slipping, ducking, rolling, and lateral movement. Thoughts.
Floyd is a good example at one end of the scale.He has incredible defence and never comes to trade punches, but I would classify His chin as suspect after the Mosley fight. Other fighters like Oliver McCall use their chin as their first and last line of defence. He hasn't even been dazed to my knowledge.
It's anticipation rather than chin itself that stops guys getting knocked down or hurt. Rolling with a punch neutralised power.. lamota buried his chin deep down into his chest and deflected blows off the top of his head. For all the punchs he took nobody really penetrated jakes jaw or temple with solid blows. He rolled a lot.
Right, even Chuvalo said if he took all the punishment folks thought he did he would not be talking OK. Chin is either a shorthand for how you handle blows, including roll/aborb/minimize them, or in pure form, how much punishment you can stand given the same exact impact in locale & force. JLP 6 is trying to isolate pure chin, & if you do, Hagler would still score about as high as anyone p4p-he did absorb fearsome blows from the likes of Mugabi & Hagler. The greatest ever in absolute terms what one could absorb not considering skill at avoiding or minimizing impact? SOmeone like Chuvalo, McCall, Tua...A HW with a squat build at whatever height.
Thank you for the correction LittleRed. I have not studied Toney's early career. I do know he has not been KO'ed despite moving up from 160 to heavy. Thanks again. Entaowed, you are right. I am try to isolate pure chin of great fighters. I agree with your analysis concerning Hagler and the others. Do you have any suprize picks that you consider great chins based on this discussion? Choklab, I think you are right, but Jake also took some direct hit from Sugar Ray that would have "rocked a truck" and he stood there and took it. Gatti is another chin guy for my money. Mayweather hit him with the sink and the most you can say was he was stumbling back to the corner. He want to keep going. Ward was landing nitrogen bombs. Gatti stood it and punched through it.
Chins are best tested when they are hit. Not being floored does for a period of time does not tell the entire story. See Wlad or Roy Jones.
That's a very good point. There have been lots of fighters who went long periods of time without being hit flush by a solid punch from a good hitter, and left fans believing that their chin was solid as a result of never being hurt or decked. I do however think that Jones' chin is better than some give it credit for. I think his punch resistance deteriorated as he aged.
