(Dempsey) Heavyweights That Never Cut (Dempsey)

First off, great avatar. I've been seeing them live on almost every tour for the last 10 years, and I still can't get enough. My first date was watching the Irons back in 2002!

Secondly, I'm not convinced that this is any more than a myth, or at least that it is not based on skin colour. For instance, Oscar Bonavena was nearly as white as Hatton, but had a reputation for being impossible to cut (Ali couldn't do it in 15 rounds). Then you have boxers like Winky Wright and Lennox Lewis who cut a fair bit.

Rather than pseudo-scientific explanations concerning melanin (melanin does a number of things, but I've never heard of it toughening the skin) I think cheekbones and overall facial structure are more important. This could mean that certain races may seem to have an advantage if they tend to have certain facial types. It seems that round, smooth faces with no jagged edges (feminine faces) are the best to avoid cutting, since there are no points for the skin to stretch on the bone.

So someone like Winky Wright, who had more jagged edges than mount Everest, cuts a lot more than Oscar Bonavena (who, while long-faced, had smooth eyebrow bones and low cheekbones) would, regardless of skin colour. On the other hand, black fighters may tend to have more feminine facial features, which would help them to avoid being cut.

However, I've seen nothing other than anecdotal evidence to support the view. What might be significant is that if a guy is white, it's much easier to see blood on him.

 

He needed almost 20 stiches, if I remember correctly. That performance showed the best and worst of Lewis: when he had confidence and was getting through he was brilliant, when he got timid he looked awful.

Of course, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that very few men were able to consistently hit Louis on the eyes. A good defense can be a great substitute for McCall-like durability!

Quite right, I think he was stopped on cuts in fact.

To be quite honest, while I'm a Wlad fan I never really bother with his fights of that period. It wasn't until his management started to realise they only had a few prime years left (from about the Sam Peter fight onwards) that he started facing really intriguing opponents.

 

Certainly never badly. Frazier's problem was that he would swell up like a water-balloon.

 

Well, it's perhaps notable that the "black guys cut less easily" myth came up in the second half of the 20th century, when there were less poor white Americans taking up boxing. If your talent-pool consists of Chuck Wepner, Gerry Cooney and Peter McNeeley, there's going to be a lot of blood spilt.

Furthermore, look at Monzon's face. His cheekbones are low, and there are no sharp boney edges for his eyebrows to cut off of. In fact, now I look at him, he looks a lot like Bonavena.

 

Yet Lewis was also cut in that fight; it was just that he was lucky enough to have it in a less compromising part of his face. Also, you have to take account the gulf in talent there: it's natural that a lesser white boxer would look bad after being in with a superior (albeit faded) black boxer.