Rank the Best Chins...Ever.

in my time, olly McCall.

in the future scientists will open his skull to find his brain is wired totally differently, or his skull has neanderthalsque thickness.

 

Mendoza great post

Where do you rank wlad? he hasn't been floored in 10 years

 

Bump for mendoza

 

No Ross Puritty in these lists? I'm saddened.

 

That's because of the quality of his defense, not his chin. While his chin isn't candy floss, like his detractors make out, it is not iron either. I'd rate him as "average" ... can take the occasional big shot but punches in bunches will take care of him. He's got a good heart imho. If the ref hadn't stopped the Sanders fight he would have tried to fight on even though he couldn't stand.

 

I think Wlad's chin gets underrated (as does he in general), you don't go ten years fighting some big punchers without going down if you can't take it. When younger he seemed to panic a bit when pressured, but he sorted that out and went on the dominate the division. That said though his chin isn't his strongest asset, I'd say its decent but nothing that stands out.

 

Not very high. Chins are best graded when they are hit. Although Wlad has gone 10 years without being floored ( A record for a heavyweight champion ) the main reason is because he has not been hit hard often.

Wlad's defense is outstanding. His high right hand take away the outside hook. He uses his height, and good/fast footwork to his advantage. Wlad is a master at distance knowing where he can hit the other guy, but the other guy can not hit him. Such is the luxury when your 6'6" tall and have an 81" reach with a world class jab, right and hook.

If his opponent rushes in, Wlad is a technical clincher ( clinching is a skill too ) with excellent power to clamp down, and the leverage to lean his weight down on his opponents in almost all cases.

If you want to catch Wlad, you have to be willing to get hit on the outside...not an option for most because he hits a ton.

On the scale I created, I would say B- for Wlad, but give him an A- defense.


A + = Fighter was never down in his prime, and it took a lot of punches to TKO him. Fighter proved he could take hard shots from certified big punchers who landed hard shots. Very rare.

A = Fighter was rarely down, and hardly ever stopped from punches. It usually took a heck of a shot to drop him, and in most cases, the fighter recovered to avoid the stoppage loss.

A - = Fighter had a top chin, but could be dropped or hurt by solid to good punchers. But because he was durable, a stoppage loss based off 1-2 hard blows is not likely..

B+ = Fighter had a top chin much like an A-, but unlike an A-, the fighter is more likely to be stunned or hurt by solid to good punches whereas the A- fighter would likely shake them off.

B = Fighter chin is not an issue vs average to non - punchers who land occasional hard shots. He's down a bit more than the B+ fighter, and doesn't recover as quickly as the B+ fighter. The term puncher’s chance starts to multiply here. Still his chin is not considered to be bad. It’s solid.

B- = Fighter can be dropped by average to solid punchers. Good punchers can and will knock this type of fighter out. Chin is defiantly questionable vs punchers. When punchers land they will produce a stoppage, a knockdown, or stun him in most cases. Anyone below this point has a bad chin for the heavyweight division.

C+ = Fighter has been Ko'd and down quite a bit by punchers, solid punchers, and some non punchers. Durability is defiantly an issue and the margin for error to get up and recover is slim.

C = Suspect durability that has been proven so over different levels of fighters, sometimes by fringe contenders or journeyman types. This fighter is not likely to make it into a 3rd party top ten, such as Ring Magazine.

C - or below.....glass jaw type.

 

Entaowed, regarding PEDs and chances of getting KO'd or KD, I must agree that PEDs may help in that sence that it improve stamina and strength, and thus the fighter can perform better offensively and has less chances to get hit by hard punches.

As for McCall and Wilson, both have great chins, among the best ever for sure, and they unlike other iron-chinned fighter Mercer (whose chin was cracked in his 40's by Wlad and Briggs) were able to compete till the 50.

 

Wlad is the only HW champ in history to go 10 years as champ without a knockdown. Defense plays a role in that, but he's still taken quite a few big shots over those years and soaked them without going down. He's only been knocked down by 4 opponents in his career, that's the same number Ali was knocked down over a shorter career. He's faced all types and all sizes of fighters over that time. There are few active heavyweights who have not been knocked down, none of them have seen remotely the level of opposition that he has, there is significant empirical evidence that he has a very good chin, and none that he has a weak chin. At best, there's evidence that when he was a much younger fighter, he had chin problems

 

yes I wouldn't be surprised by that, when hammered in the skull his brain was protected by thicker bones and structures, lol,

I mean what else could it be?

the guy was abnormal, you hit 99.99% of human beings as hard as McCall was hit and they will be unconscious or doing the funky chicken all over the place.

 

The suggestions have been mostly heavyweights, but how about Camacho as a fighter who moved up in weight and still took the hardest shots and went the distance against knockout punching bigger men in Tito and De la Hoya? But in his case he avoided their power rather than took. I really think the phenomenon is so rare because it's almost an impossibility of physics. A man might be able to take punches to the head from a hard puncher his own size, but a man taking punches from a pure power puncher who's also clearly bigger than him isn't going to happen. Weight classes exist for a reason, Chacon was obliterated by Mancini, Gomez by Sanchez, etc, etc. Provodnikov might be able to take Matthysse's power, but he's getting knocked out if he tastes Golovkin's punches. As Basilio had an iron chin vs the natural welterweight Robinson but couldn't last the distance vs Fullmer.