Big punchers that rarely saw the canvas?

I wouldn't put Lyle there. He was dropped multiple times, particularly at the end of his career. Agree with the 1st 2 though.

 

Mike Tyson. Suffered one legit knockdown in his first 52 fights (over 17 years). And Mike fought a lot of punchers.

 

I do tend to think of the heavyweights when it comes to the monster punchers and at least at that weight it's hard to think of many who didn't hit the deck at least once and most suffered knockouts at some point in their careers:

Dempsey
Louis
Liston
Foreman
Shavers
Tyson
Lewis

The only one of those I'd call chinny (not to his face, obviously) is Shavers. But they all had their KO/TKO losses.

But if I had to pick one it would be Liston. Putting the rematch debacle against Ali aside (which was clearly not a result of an actual punch) as well as the final fight of his career when he was a shell of his late fifties/early sixties prime, Liston was pretty resilient, I'd say. How many other times pre-Ali did he actually hit the deck?

 

Great post. The Ali debacle clouds what a great chin Liston actually had.

 

You could bracket him with Valdes.

 

At the risk of being lynched, does Hagler belong here? Im not for 1 second denigrating his talent or achievements but i never looked at him as a big puncher,well, in the traditional sense anyway. More accumulative than big

 

He's one level below a big puncher for me.

 

yeah, thats about how i see it too

 

Nice.

 

Respectfully disagree .. Marvin was a big puncher. He sometimes boxed and fought surgically but when he went balls to the wall very few lasted ..

 

Sullivan
Spinks (pre Tyson)
Briscoe
Mosley at 135
Campas at 147

 

Surprised it took almost 2 pages for a mere Tyson mention. People mention Foreman and Lyle, both were dropped more times in their fight than Tyson during his whole career. And Shavers?

Bowe didn't get dropped until the 3rd Holyfield fight. Then twice in the Golota rematch.

 

Tyson's chin is ridiculously under rated my many .. he had a terrific chin compounded by the fact he was a small swarmer with high risk to getting hit .. took big hits from Smith, Tucker, Thomas, Ruddock, Bruno .. even in his losses to Douglas and Lewis he was taking bomb after bomb from huge guys who could punch at their best before going .. it was an A chin .. very few are Chuvalo or Mercer ..

 

Azumah Nelson. Excellent boxer / fighter with great power and excellent chin .

 

He was down v Frankie Randall. Randall was down in the same round.