How Good Was Sonny Liston circ 1960?

CT - I’ve provided numerous reference points to support my opinion that Floyd’s chin was not glass - not glass as per absolute definition.

If you believe that a glass chin is a relative value, as it seems you might be implying , - then as your reference point, it’s apt for you to clearly frame that position, define a glass chin and provide your own comparative examples in support for discussion.

 

I think if we're discussing glass chins, then it would have to be a relative definition. Boxing is a sport where you're measured against your opponents. That said, even if you're using an absolute standard, I assume there must still be some fighter in history who meets that standard, along with reasons why he meets it.

I did skim over your posts again, and I admit that I might have missed something. But the points of comparison I saw you using were: (1) Roy Jones, who was not a heavyweight when his chin failed him, (2) Joe Frazier, who I think you're arguing was not glass-chinned (with the conclusion being: then neither was Floyd.)

Your statement in one of your posts was: "Surely a glass chin would’ve seen more KOs yielded by fighters not necessarily considered punchers - as Ingemar and Liston most certainly were." So it sounded to me like you have some sort of standard for glass-chinned-ness in mind. ( Since Patterson didn't meet it, but another, hypothetical glass-chinned fighter would.)

If that was what you were implying, I agree with you. If we're discussing whether Patterson had a glass chin, it seems to me we should have a clear idea of a standard we're comparing him to. That's all.

EDIT: Technically, I suppose this request should have been sent to both parties, so @Saintpat -- any other examples of elite heavyweight glass chinned fighters?

 

No dramas. I understand what you’re trying to say.

I would say it’s not so much relative as an absolute standard against which 2 fighters might be measured and then found to be similar per the source standard - not a H2H comparison to determine how the chins might be rated relative to one another.

If we were talking relative, then that suggests among and as compared to a certain pool of fighters, fighter A’s chin might be considered good but among another pool of fighters again, some might reason his chin to be glass, RELATIVE to the second pool.

We could hypothesise a HW top 10, all power punchers, all having engaged one another equally over a period of time, all landing their best punches to sufficiently test their opponents chin, 9 of whom still did not suffer being KO’d or KD’d but one (fighter A) who has suffered 2 KO losses to 2 separate fighters in that same top 10.

Relative to the other fighters in the top 10, there would be an argument to suggest that fighter A has the weakest chin, obviously in relative terms and I guess some could stretch it and say fighter A’s chin was glass RELATIVE to the other fighters - but I would still say his chin wasn’t necessarily glass in absolute terms.

Hope that makes sense, I had to post on the run, there might be some plot holes in my examples/hypos and there is also a question of semantics and how others define a so called glass chin.

Anyway, what say you as to the rating of Floyd’s chin and any possible examples of glass chinned fighters?

Just something to throw into the fray - Joe Grim was called the Iron Man and such given his resistance to being KO’d/stopped notwithstanding his being KD’d a significant amount of times.







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Fair enough.

I'd say that even if we use an absolute standard, we should pick one that actually applies to real-world fighters. Otherwise, the standard isn't very useful. For example, imagine if I decided that anybody who'd been KD'd more than a prime George Chuvalo had a glass chin. That's a TON of fighters. It's not a very useful category, even though it's an objective, absolute standard.

So, to get to your question:

I haven't thought much about a good absolute standard for glass-chinned-ness. That's one of the reasons I asked you which elite heavyweights you'd count. I was hoping for some data to create one.

Obviously, I'd want to pick an absolute boundary line that tells us something useful. Patterson's chin was pretty weak. He was KD'd a lot, so that's bad. On the other hand, Patterson had an aggressive style. If he'd been more defensive, nobody would have noticed his chin. He probably wouldn't have suffered as many knockdowns.

So if I was asked to create an absolute category of glass-chinned-ness, I might be tempted to put the line close to Patterson. Patterson's a candidate for being included in the glass-chinned category. But if you can name a bunch of elite heavies with noticeably weaker chins than Patterson, I would decide that there are clearly levels below Patterson that deserve to be classed as "glass" a lot more than Patterson does.

 

All good - I don’t necessarily agree on a few points and I would say using Chuvalo as a benchmark example is actually more if not all a relative standard as opposed to an absolute.

Anyway, I understand that KDs can be looked at as a potential metric but you could have scenarios in which a fighter who, never KO’d or barely so, might’ve been KD’d far more than a another fighter who has actually suffered several KO losses, most of which or even all were KD/KO all in one.

So, while one might assume a correlate between # of KDs to # of outright KO losses (ultimate measure of a possibly glass chin) , it may not always be the case - so perhaps I could say that in that regard Floyd susceptibility to KDs belied his ultimate resistance to being KO’d - while there maybe others who weren’t KD’d so much who pretty much went down and out when they kissed the canvas.

I’d have to refresh on his career and vision but I recall Big John Tate being a guy who appeared to complete short circuit on upon a good to very hard punch - see Weaver and then Berbick fights. The type of KOs you’d call chilling in view of Tate’s absolute unconscious state. Of course you’d have to weigh in that Weaver could punch and it was a great 11th hour left hook and that KO alone might’ve impaired Tate’s resilience permanently thereafter - but it’s not often you see guy fall like that - as if he had been shot and almost literally dead. Scary.

 

He beats Johnson but Louis is 50/50. I think Dempseys speed could be problematic.