Most mentally tough boxers in history?

That guy mentioned in the last thread of this sort, who fought on despite his jaw literally being cracked in half, is probably still the guy.

Him aside, if we are talking pure mental ability to resist being psyched out, Johnson is good enough that you probably won't find many better. A large segment of the industrialized world hated him. His own ethnic group's intellectuals hated him. He regularly received fairly credible death threats. Before the Jeffries fight, Johnson got about the biggest dose of psychological warfare inflicted on him that a boxer possibly could, with contributions from Jack London, Jim Corbett, and everybody else who enlisted himself to Jeffries's cause. But Johnson just kept plugging along, trolling people.

He couldn't change gears in the Hart fight, but that probably says less about his unflappability than his ability to adapt his style.

 

Marvin Hagler,
He took injustices and rather than being discouraged or doubting himself. Hagler, better than anyone I saw took robberies, setbacks and made himself more determined. Made himself mentally stronger he took it for what it was didn't let it eat him up.

 

100 percent agree

 

yeah he was a different type of personality. So sensitive and yet so tough. Almost like that sensitivity gave him motivation to prove things.. He was a quiet introverted man, who just wanted respect.

 

Ali and Holmes .. Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, Jack Dempsey, Joe Frazier..

 

Marv was an introvert?

 

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"Boxing is about fighting everybody, If you claim you the best you have to fight the best you know what I'm sayin'? You don't duckin' you pickin' you don't choose... eh, if you get your butt kicked you get your butt kicked." Iran "The Blade" Barkley

 

Carlos Monzon...some writer put it this way...and I paraphrase..."Monzon fought with a cold, imperial arrogance...born of the belief that there was no man alive who could beat him"...

 

Ah, good callback to my post about Derrik Holmes.

Stopped by Wilfredo Gomez in five. Went down like seven times, a couple of which he didn’t even seem to really get hit.

Looked like he quit/chickened out.

But Ring magazine ran a follow-up on the fight that showed the actual X-rays of his jaw. Not only was it split in two — as in severed — it also split a tooth in half right down the middle (not upper and lower … like from the roots up to the top, along the fracture line.

And he kept getting up and trying.

I’ve never seen a display of greater courage and toughness in the ring.

 

Smoking Joe Frazier, he ignored Muhammad Ali's barbs before their historic match on March 8 1971, not many fighters could ignore Ali's insults like Joe did, Ali lived in their heads rent free.

 

Ray Mercer.

 

GREAT post!

 

Arturo Gatti

 

Mickey Ward