Great Chins Dented ..

Matt Franklin vs Ritchie Kates.

Saad looked like he'd been shot.

 

Hearns - Duran is the epitome of it.

 

A massive anomaly was Salvador Sanchez against the 8 - 2 southpaw Juan Escobar.

Sanchez, who has one of the greatest chins of all time, was knocked down in the fifth and repeatedly rocked throughout the bout. Reportedly, he was quite lucky to escape with a draw.

Crazy considering he wasn't even budged against far superior opposition.

(to be fair he was 19).

 

https://boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=Fight:21663

 

Me too HG! I mean he had a couple of flash kd's against De Jesus. Leonards punches bounced off him with zero effect, Benitez hit him cleanly plenty of times at 154 where he was strong and Hagler only had him wilting a touch once. Look at the punches he took off Barkley years later. He fought a long time before Hearns at the pinnacle level and he fought a helluva long time after and never at any point did anything remotely in the same stratosphere as Hearns happen.

The guy had an ATG chin which gets solidly overlooked strictly due to Hearns. Guys are leery throwing him forward in ATG chin threads lets be honest. It's a shame and not entirely fair imo.

I think this may have been the greatest KO in history to be honest.

 

I am not among the biggest Duran fans (but certainly not a detractor either), but you are spot on about his chin and “flash” KD s against Dejesus. Just rewatched them earlier this year and they were legit KD’s but not the result of a poor chin, rather a flaw defensively where he didn’t get his hand back up (a flaw he largely corrected), and a tendency to get out of position and off balance while being open to a counter...he went down yes, but was not hurt at all.

I have never done a list to rate chins but I imagine if I did he would be on it somewhere. So yeah what Tommy did is impressive to me.

Good call!

 

Hey cheers. I completely agree with your breakdown of the De Jesus kd's.

 

I am so picking up the picture. The mags at the time carried stories of shock.

 

Randy Cobb being floored 4 times and ko'd in the 1st round by 7-4-0 Dee Collier.

 

What I wished was noted more was that Duran was a natural LIGHTWEIGHT getting his chin checked by Hearns. He was considered a small WELTERWEIGHT when he moved up (and bypassed 140 BTW). Nobody gives Manny Pacquaio too much grief for getting stopped by JMM who himself was a natural feather/superfeatherweight. What do you think a prime welterweight Hearns would do with Pacquaio?? To think that years later Duran stood in with middleweight monster Iran Barkley (who just ko'd Hearns BTW) and took his best shots and outboxed him really does show the man's greatness. He really had no business fighting at any weight above 147. Pernell Whitaker tried 154 for one sucessful fight and then rightly moved back to welterweight for the rest of his career.

 

Curtis Sheppard KO1 Joey Maxim