How would Chavalo's career have played out if there were 20-25 rounds fight- 60/70's

I think he would have had a lot more stoppages on his resume,unfortuanately they would be losses rather than wins,his toughness and facial tissue held up well over 15 ,add another 10 rounds ,Isee him being lead back to his corner ,half blind and with contusions that would be the envy of the Elephant Man. No matter how durable you are ,if you are getting hit three to one ,you are going to break down before your opponent,imo.Chuvalo may have been the most durable of the Heavyweights ,but every one has their limits.

 

I think a fighter has to be a bit of a second-rater to contest the title of "best chin of all-time".
Chuvalo and McCall seem to be the leading candidates.

Getting hit on the chin should not be the aim of the game.

 

Let's lay this out clearly-

1. (a) Chins are tested by hard punches.

(b) If a boxer is hit by hard punches and is not shook up mentally, then they have shown they have a hard chin.

2. Chuvalo was hit by hard punches against Frazier and Foreman, and was not shook up. In both occasions, the stoppage was due to factors other than his being hurt in a cognitive sense; in the case of Frazier, it was due to a cut; in the case of Foreman, it was because Foreman was able to land too often for the fight to be continued.

3. Therefore, we can conclude that Chuvalo passed the test on both occasions, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT HE WAS STOPPED.

Being stopped is not a sign of a bad chin, unless it is due to the boxer's possession of a bad chin. McCall was stopped against Lewis, but it was not because he was staggering around or being bounced off of the canvas. Chris Eubank was stopped due to swelling against Carl Thompson, but he passed the test of the Cat's punches perfectly well. Vitali Klitschko was stopped by Chris Byrd and Lennox Lewis, but on neither occasion was it because of his chin.

If we are talking about sheer DURABILITY rather than CHIN, then that of course is another matter. A boxer's chin contributes to their durability, but it is not the only factor; a boxer can have a suspect chin but have the defensive ability to not be stopped. The sensible way to assess a chin is to look at the occasions where the boxer was hit hardest, determine how hard they were being punched, and then make a determination based on their reaction.

He was stopped by the punches, but he was hardly "staggered". If a boxer is having trouble staying in position, then he is staggered. Looking at the fight, there was absolutely no chance of Seldon knocking McCall down. As for McCall-Lewis, that was clearly a culmination of (a) McCall's poor mental state, and (b) the dominance Lewis was showing. Note that McCall began to break down mentally when Lewis landed hard shots, but Lewis CONTINUED to land hard shots and yet McCall took them with utter non-chalance. No-one else has ever shown a chin capable of taking Lewis's punches like that.

Any TKO would have been based on the fact that Douglas was landing with frequency, but this was as much a result of McCall being too tired to defend himself. Being tired should not be confused with being hurt; Vitali Klitschko was exhausted and almost falling over against Lewis in the 6th round of their fight, but I don't think his diminished state was primarily a consequence of Lewis's punches.

"You know your wrong?" Isn't that a somewhat immature argument? The facts are clear: McCall and Chuvalo were hit by some of the hardest punches in history, in sequence, and were not knocked down.

The closest any boxer has come to that feat would be Randall Cobb, who took Earnie Shavers's punches in what was effectively a rope-a-dope without ropes (or defence); however, given Shavers's age and the fact that he tired early (taking hard punches from a tired heavy-hitter is not as impressive as taking them from a fresher heavy-hitter) I think this can only put Cobb in the top 5, not the top 2. Chuvalo and McCall also have more comprehensive chin resumes across their career, a factor that is also important because there are boxers with questionable chins which have looked good in a few specific fights, but which failed them over the course of their career.

If you want to "yield" to my authority, fine, but I'd far rather you continued to argue your case and did not resort to childish arguments such as accusing someone of not believing what they say as a means of escaping debate.

 

I've even heard there are judges with penalise boxers for being hit on the chin, and some even favour boxers who hit their opponents often when they do their scoring.

 

You Scotties can be so nasty!

 

If anybody thinks Chuvalo would have remained on his feet the full distance against Frazier and Foreman absent the cuts/eye damage, cornerman throwing in the towel, ref stopping the fight, etc, they are way off, imo.

He would have gone down.

I also find the notion that Chuvalo substained his face damage prior to the Frazier fight hard to believe.

 

Yeah, I dont know about that either.

bigjake knows about it. He has mentioned it before, and I think he knows (or has met) Chuvalo.

 

Whatever happened to boxers being tested by punches? We cannot test chins on the basis of what WOULD have happened if they were hit by x punches. I also think you might want to check your facts- Frazier DID stop Chuvalo.

If you look at the film, Chuvalo was moved by the left hook and was hit by a number of punches, but he was in no danger of going down and was NOT shaken up.

As I explained in my preceding post, being stopped does not necessarily have anything to do with one's chin. Furthermore, I specified that Chuvalo had one of the best chin's of all time; I did not say tha the was the most durable boxer of all time. Please read my posts carefully.

So what you're saying is that, in spite of the fact that Vitali was stopped in all of his losses (which were against the best boxers he ever fought), he was stopped for reasons other than his chin? If so, we can logically apply the same standard to Chuvalo. Chuvalo was stopped due to an eye injury against Frazier and was not hurt against Foreman, and was in no danger of going down. One has to apply equal standards for both.

I disagree with your statement that Chuvalo was closer to going down than Vitali was against Lewis. Lewis had Vitali shaken up and staggering on multiple occasions, indeed at some points only Vitali's grabbing on to Lewis saved him from going down. Given that an old and scrappy Lewis was able to do this to him with single shots, I have no doubt that (had he fought boxers of their quality) boxers like a near-peak Douglas and a near-peak Seldon would have hurt him badly, and possibly stopped him.

At what point in their fight did Hide connect with a clean punch?

Who hit him with single shots, but did not test him with combinations in the same way that Chuvalo's chin was tested by Foreman.

Not only was Chuvalo not in danger of going down, but he was at no point driven to be clinging onto his opponent's waist with his body creating a 90 degree angle. Chuvalo's chin was more rigourously tested, by better boxers, and he was stopped less often.

Frazier looked like he had more energy than Ali after the 14th round of the Thrilla in Manilla. One can hardly judge how much energy a boxer has by how they behave when they are not boxing.

While you say that Lewis looked the more tired of the two throughout the fight (which was true, he was in poor condition) in the final round he clearly had much more energy, and it was Vitali who was almost collapsing. I would feel far more confident in assessing a boxer's energy from how he behaves over a 3 minute period than on him sitting down slightly awkwardly. The latter could simply be a mistake or a mild symptom (remember, Lewis had a beaming smile in his corner before the stoppage) while the former is an undisputable sign of exhaustion.

Actually, my smiley "thread" (post) simply pointed out an apparent inconsistency in your argument.

If you were worried that the thread was going off topic, you should have just said.

 

Surely Vitali's chin isn't being seriously compared to Chuvalo's and McCall, surely.

 

Chuvalo and McCall are leagues more proven than Vitali and The Kurgan has given enough good information on them to get lost in. Both fought much better fighters than Vitali.