The 10 best chins in boxing History

Bill Butcher · Apr 21, 2010

Da Chin Chekka said: ↑

This is a nice article I found while surfing the net. Check it out and tell me what you guys think.

The 10 best chins in boxing history

A boxer's chin is sometimes his last line of defense. Graham Houston lists 10 fighters with the best whiskers in boxing history.

This content is protected
By Graham Houston
Special to ESPN.com

This content is protected
It took a monstrous hook from Sugar Ray Robinson to take Gene Fullmer off of his feet.
Throughout boxing history there have been some incredibly tough individuals. The "Durable Dane" nickname of old-time lightweight champ Battling Nelson was well-earned, for instance. In a look at the all-time best chins, then, the problem is not which boxers to include but which to leave out. Here, focusing on fighters of the past, is a list of the toughest of the tough. 10. Tommy Farr

Tough Tommy from Tonpandy, Wales, will forever be remembered for not only lasting the full 15 rounds with Joe Louis but actually giving the Brown Bomber a very good, competitive fight. Farr was stopped five times but three of those losses were earlier in his 126-fight career and two when he was well past his best. The Louis fight was one of the ring's great exhibitions; it showed how to endure under fire and give some back against an all-time great puncher. As James P. Dawson reported in The New York Times: "Farr, though he was beaten last night, battered and bruised and pounded with staggering force at times, won glory in that he attained the unique distinction of surviving 15 rounds against the master puncher of the day."

9. Gene Fullmer

The "Mauling Mormon" was stopped only twice, the first time famously when Sugar Ray Robinson hit him with one of the greatest left hooks ever thrown in their middleweight championship rematch. In three other 15-round fights with Robinson, Fullmer took the best punches that the greatest fighter in history could deliver. He was stopped for the second time in his career when, cut and battered, his corner retired him after the seventh round against old rival Dick Tiger in Nigeria, but by that time Fullmer, 32, was at the end of his career. In the third of his four-fight series with Robinson -- a 15-round draw -- The Associated Press reported that Sugar Ray "rattled numerous rights off the granite-like jaw and chin of Fullmer" and that it "seemed impossible for the 29-year-old champion from West Jordan, Utah, to survive the attack." Fullmer did survive, though, and defiantly told the press afterwards: "He never hurt me."

8. Carmen Basilio

This content is protected
Basilio, right, had the ability to walk through extremely hard shots.

The onion farmer from Syracuse, N.Y., was a tireless aggressor and wicked left-hooker noted for his ruggedness and big heart. His two stoppage defeats came at the end of his career against the bigger, stronger Fullmer, and the rematch was halted mainly because Basilio was badly cut, with the brave warrior furious at the referee for stopping the fight. Basilio withstood some tremendous blows from Tony DeMarco in their two welterweight championship wars. When he narrowly defeated Robinson in the first of their two epic fights The Associated Press reported that Basilio "shook off punches that would have knocked down a horse."

7. Jake LaMotta

Not many fighters, surely, could have withstood the punishment that Jake LaMotta absorbed from Sugar Ray Robinson in their 1951 title fight without going down. Although the Bronx Bull took a terrible beating he was on his feet, bloodied but defiant, at the finish. (In the movie "Raging Bull," Robert DeNiro, as LaMotta, says with hoarse-voiced satisfaction at the end of the fight: "Ray, you couldn't knock me down." It was the sort of comment the real-life LaMotta might have made.) In more than 100 bouts against the best of his era, nobody barred, LaMotta was stopped just four times -- by Robinson, the notorious fixed fight against Billy Fox, and twice as a light heavyweight when he was largely a spent force -- but he was never counted out.

6. Kid Gavilan

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In 143 fights, Kid Gavilan, left, was never stopped.

The Cuban Hawk was never stopped in 143 fights -- although he suffered a couple of knockdowns, one coming in his welterweight title fight with Basilio when he was nailed by a left hook that might have knocked out most 147-pounders. Gavilan is the fourth boxer on the list to have fought Robinson. When Gavilan gave Sugar Ray an excellent fight for the welterweight title, James P. Dawson reported in The New York Times that "the Cuban has more endurance, determination and fearlessness than any other in Robinson's limited field of challengers."

5. Carlos Monzon

Argentina's Carlos Monzon lost three fights out of 100, all on points, and although knocked down by the fine Colombian middleweight Rodrigo Valdes, he got up to win and retired afterwards as unbeaten and the undisputed 160-pound champion. I was lucky enough to have been able to cover several of Monzon's European fights from ringside, including his 1975 title defense against Gratien Tonna in Paris when the rather crude but muscular French boxer landed a tremendous left hook early in the fight -- and Monzon never went anywhere. After this, the will to fight seemed to drain from Tonna, who essentially surrendered in the fifth.

4. George Chuvalo

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George Chuvalo, left, took shots from some of the hardest hitting heavyweights in boxing history -- including George Foreman, right -- and never went down.

No list of best chins could be complete, in my view, without mention of Canadian heavyweight ironman George Chuvalo, who twice went the distance with Muhammad Ali and was never dropped in 93 fights. (When Chuvalo was stopped by Joe Frazier he suffered a fractured cheekbone, and he remained on his feet while being overwhelmed by George Foreman.) Chuvalo outlasted the very hard-hitting Jerry Quarry in a seven-round war. In an interview for Boxing Monthly in 1998, Chuvalo told me that although known mostly for being able to absorb punches, he felt he could box a bit, too. "If I got hit with one-tenth of the punches that I was reputed to have been hit with, I wouldn't be able to talk to you," he said. "I'd always say: 'On the right night, I'd beat anybody.' Maybe if they had 100-round fights I would have."

3. Rocky Marciano

Rocky Marciano's ability to take punishment and keep coming is the stuff of legend. He was dropped twice in his 49 fights (all of which were victories), coming back to knock out wonderful sharpshooters Jersey Joe Walcott and Archie Moore. Although the great Ezzard Charles bloodied Marciano in each of their two fights he could not stop the Rock's relentless advances. Marciano simply seemed unstoppable in these fights. As observed by writer Ed Fitzgerald in the January 1953 edition of Sport magazine: "You can, as with an enraged grizzly bear, slow him down and make him shake his head if you hit him hard enough to wound him, but you can't make him back up."

2. Harry Greb

The old "Human Windmill" was as tough as they come. In 240 bouts he was stopped only twice, once when he was outweighed, then when he suffered a broken arm. Those losses came in the first two years of his 13-year career. A great middleweight champion, he fought the best of his era including top-caliber light heavyweights, notably Gene Tunney (later to become heavyweight champion) and Tommy Loughran. Astonishingly, Greb fought the last several years of his career while blind in the right eye, the general consensus being that he had been thumbed in the eye in a 1921 contest.

1. Marvelous Marvin Hagler

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Only Juan Roldan, right, could take Marvin Hagler off his feet -- and it was more of a slip than a knockdown.

In a list of really, really tough guys, Hagler has to be right up there. He was only dropped once, and that was an off-balance flooring against Argentina's rough and rugged Juan Domingo Roldan, whom he otherwise outclassed. Hagler stood up to the best punches of John Mugabi, one of the biggest hitters of the 1980s. What puts Hagler at the top of the list, in my view, is the way he took some tremendous punches from Thomas Hearns in their epic three-round war. I doubt very many middleweights could have weathered the Hearns firestorm that night, but Hagler did, and he came back with an even more withering barrage of his own. What a chin -- what a fighter.
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Julio Cesar Chavez should be near the top of this list... he`s not even on the fkn thing.

itrymariti · Apr 21, 2010

What the **** is Monzon doing on there? That's an absolute joke. The way he gets his arse kissed for simply getting up off the floor against Valdez has always been totally inappropriate, Briscoe had him reeling all over the ring. His chin's nowhere near as proven as the others on there

Duran should definitely be on there.

EverLast · Apr 21, 2010

can i just say, being floored doesnt necessarily mean you have a **** chin....

i can think of many fighters who have been floored, but had an awesome ability to take a punch

what i mean by this is, being floored is one thing, but there have been times where fighters have got up instantly from MAMMOTH shots and recovered quickly to make it to the end of the fight (e.g Frazier's left hook on Ali.....wouldve sparked most HW's the **** out...Ali was up at the count of 3...**** chin? i think not lol)

also....although i do believe that you either have a good chin, or you dont.......a fighter who does generally possess a great chin, can still get knocked the **** out if he comes into a fight out of shape...this seriously detriments levels of endurance and resistance a fighter can take.

in relation to the thread though, im pretty much in agreement with most of the names mentioned, i think McCall has to be up there.....and i think Tyson, who although may have shown extreme mental frailty in his losses, is another man who i dont think i have seen knocked spark out...i cant remember him ever being out of his senses, even in the Douglas fight where exhaustion from taking shots, and seemingly low levels of stamina (again coming in unprepared) really finished him.

I think Prince Naz also deserves a mention

johnmaff36 · Apr 21, 2010

Drew101 said: ↑

Juan Laporte (Never down in his career,even though his ledger included fighters like Chavez, Gomez, Sanschez and Tszyu. Stopped once by Zack padilla at the very end of his career more due to being outworked than because he was actually hurt.)

Billy Graham (Again, never down in his pro career, and though he was a pretty slick boxer, he had well over 100 fights, and if you have that many contests, that generally means to your going to have to weather the effects of an opponent's punches at some point.)
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Add Pedroza and mcguigan to that list. Thats some resume laporte has never to be down.

johnmaff36 · Apr 21, 2010

chatty said: ↑

Not a fighter who has a name but Jack 'Cast Iron' Casey from Sunderland definately deserves a menion here - i wrote an article on the guy and he had 224 fights without getting koed - i think he got knocked down about 5 times. He attributed his great chin o eating seafood and when he died his jawbone was put in a museum.
Heres the link to his record
http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=17905&cat=boxer

On the world scale you cant argue with la motta and marciano and ali also deserves a mention - he never took a ten count and was only stopped once by larry holmes at the end of his career
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without sounding pedantic it was angelo dundee who actually stopped the fight by not letting Ali come out for the round

ciscobox · Apr 21, 2010

Da Chin Chekka said: ↑

This is a nice article I found while surfing the net. Check it out and tell me what you guys think.

The 10 best chins in boxing history

A boxer's chin is sometimes his last line of defense. Graham Houston lists 10 fighters with the best whiskers in boxing history.

This content is protected
By Graham Houston
Special to ESPN.com

This content is protected
It took a monstrous hook from Sugar Ray Robinson to take Gene Fullmer off of his feet.
Throughout boxing history there have been some incredibly tough individuals. The "Durable Dane" nickname of old-time lightweight champ Battling Nelson was well-earned, for instance. In a look at the all-time best chins, then, the problem is not which boxers to include but which to leave out. Here, focusing on fighters of the past, is a list of the toughest of the tough. 10. Tommy Farr

Tough Tommy from Tonpandy, Wales, will forever be remembered for not only lasting the full 15 rounds with Joe Louis but actually giving the Brown Bomber a very good, competitive fight. Farr was stopped five times but three of those losses were earlier in his 126-fight career and two when he was well past his best. The Louis fight was one of the ring's great exhibitions; it showed how to endure under fire and give some back against an all-time great puncher. As James P. Dawson reported in The New York Times: "Farr, though he was beaten last night, battered and bruised and pounded with staggering force at times, won glory in that he attained the unique distinction of surviving 15 rounds against the master puncher of the day."

9. Gene Fullmer

The "Mauling Mormon" was stopped only twice, the first time famously when Sugar Ray Robinson hit him with one of the greatest left hooks ever thrown in their middleweight championship rematch. In three other 15-round fights with Robinson, Fullmer took the best punches that the greatest fighter in history could deliver. He was stopped for the second time in his career when, cut and battered, his corner retired him after the seventh round against old rival Dick Tiger in Nigeria, but by that time Fullmer, 32, was at the end of his career. In the third of his four-fight series with Robinson -- a 15-round draw -- The Associated Press reported that Sugar Ray "rattled numerous rights off the granite-like jaw and chin of Fullmer" and that it "seemed impossible for the 29-year-old champion from West Jordan, Utah, to survive the attack." Fullmer did survive, though, and defiantly told the press afterwards: "He never hurt me."

8. Carmen Basilio

This content is protected
Basilio, right, had the ability to walk through extremely hard shots.

The onion farmer from Syracuse, N.Y., was a tireless aggressor and wicked left-hooker noted for his ruggedness and big heart. His two stoppage defeats came at the end of his career against the bigger, stronger Fullmer, and the rematch was halted mainly because Basilio was badly cut, with the brave warrior furious at the referee for stopping the fight. Basilio withstood some tremendous blows from Tony DeMarco in their two welterweight championship wars. When he narrowly defeated Robinson in the first of their two epic fights The Associated Press reported that Basilio "shook off punches that would have knocked down a horse."

7. Jake LaMotta

Not many fighters, surely, could have withstood the punishment that Jake LaMotta absorbed from Sugar Ray Robinson in their 1951 title fight without going down. Although the Bronx Bull took a terrible beating he was on his feet, bloodied but defiant, at the finish. (In the movie "Raging Bull," Robert DeNiro, as LaMotta, says with hoarse-voiced satisfaction at the end of the fight: "Ray, you couldn't knock me down." It was the sort of comment the real-life LaMotta might have made.) In more than 100 bouts against the best of his era, nobody barred, LaMotta was stopped just four times -- by Robinson, the notorious fixed fight against Billy Fox, and twice as a light heavyweight when he was largely a spent force -- but he was never counted out.

6. Kid Gavilan

This content is protected
In 143 fights, Kid Gavilan, left, was never stopped.

The Cuban Hawk was never stopped in 143 fights -- although he suffered a couple of knockdowns, one coming in his welterweight title fight with Basilio when he was nailed by a left hook that might have knocked out most 147-pounders. Gavilan is the fourth boxer on the list to have fought Robinson. When Gavilan gave Sugar Ray an excellent fight for the welterweight title, James P. Dawson reported in The New York Times that "the Cuban has more endurance, determination and fearlessness than any other in Robinson's limited field of challengers."

5. Carlos Monzon

Argentina's Carlos Monzon lost three fights out of 100, all on points, and although knocked down by the fine Colombian middleweight Rodrigo Valdes, he got up to win and retired afterwards as unbeaten and the undisputed 160-pound champion. I was lucky enough to have been able to cover several of Monzon's European fights from ringside, including his 1975 title defense against Gratien Tonna in Paris when the rather crude but muscular French boxer landed a tremendous left hook early in the fight -- and Monzon never went anywhere. After this, the will to fight seemed to drain from Tonna, who essentially surrendered in the fifth.

4. George Chuvalo

This content is protected
George Chuvalo, left, took shots from some of the hardest hitting heavyweights in boxing history -- including George Foreman, right -- and never went down.

No list of best chins could be complete, in my view, without mention of Canadian heavyweight ironman George Chuvalo, who twice went the distance with Muhammad Ali and was never dropped in 93 fights. (When Chuvalo was stopped by Joe Frazier he suffered a fractured cheekbone, and he remained on his feet while being overwhelmed by George Foreman.) Chuvalo outlasted the very hard-hitting Jerry Quarry in a seven-round war. In an interview for Boxing Monthly in 1998, Chuvalo told me that although known mostly for being able to absorb punches, he felt he could box a bit, too. "If I got hit with one-tenth of the punches that I was reputed to have been hit with, I wouldn't be able to talk to you," he said. "I'd always say: 'On the right night, I'd beat anybody.' Maybe if they had 100-round fights I would have."

3. Rocky Marciano

Rocky Marciano's ability to take punishment and keep coming is the stuff of legend. He was dropped twice in his 49 fights (all of which were victories), coming back to knock out wonderful sharpshooters Jersey Joe Walcott and Archie Moore. Although the great Ezzard Charles bloodied Marciano in each of their two fights he could not stop the Rock's relentless advances. Marciano simply seemed unstoppable in these fights. As observed by writer Ed Fitzgerald in the January 1953 edition of Sport magazine: "You can, as with an enraged grizzly bear, slow him down and make him shake his head if you hit him hard enough to wound him, but you can't make him back up."

2. Harry Greb

The old "Human Windmill" was as tough as they come. In 240 bouts he was stopped only twice, once when he was outweighed, then when he suffered a broken arm. Those losses came in the first two years of his 13-year career. A great middleweight champion, he fought the best of his era including top-caliber light heavyweights, notably Gene Tunney (later to become heavyweight champion) and Tommy Loughran. Astonishingly, Greb fought the last several years of his career while blind in the right eye, the general consensus being that he had been thumbed in the eye in a 1921 contest.

1. Marvelous Marvin Hagler

This content is protected
Only Juan Roldan, right, could take Marvin Hagler off his feet -- and it was more of a slip than a knockdown.

In a list of really, really tough guys, Hagler has to be right up there. He was only dropped once, and that was an off-balance flooring against Argentina's rough and rugged Juan Domingo Roldan, whom he otherwise outclassed. Hagler stood up to the best punches of John Mugabi, one of the biggest hitters of the 1980s. What puts Hagler at the top of the list, in my view, is the way he took some tremendous punches from Thomas Hearns in their epic three-round war. I doubt very many middleweights could have weathered the Hearns firestorm that night, but Hagler did, and he came back with an even more withering barrage of his own. What a chin -- what a fighter.
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thats a pretty good list. :good

dragor · Apr 21, 2010

Andrade chin is preety solid , and McCall of course. Watch Andrade - Kessler.

Da Chin Chekka · Apr 21, 2010

dragor said: ↑

Andrade chin is preety solid , and McCall of course. Watch Andrade - Kessler.
Click to expand...

two good choices with McCall & Andrade

joejab · Apr 21, 2010

Someone that I feel should be number one is Joe Grim. Horrible boxer, but probably the toughest dude to step in the ring.

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/joegrim.html

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=10815&cat=boxer

lewishamboy · Apr 21, 2010

Taylex said: ↑

Chris Eubank.
Click to expand...

Absolute granite

HEADBANGER · Apr 21, 2010

Da Chin Chekka said: ↑

Cause he got Ktfo in brutal fashion twice!!! Can u say Tarver & Johnson
Click to expand...

good point, never thought of that.

Da Chin Chekka · Apr 21, 2010

HEADBANGER said: ↑

good point, never thought of that.
Click to expand...

I was so hurt the first time roy got koed by Tarver ,one of my friends started laughing and I kicked him out of my house....just how Martin used to do it on the tv show...:rofl

teeto · Apr 21, 2010

There have been so many great chins, Gavilan, Britton and Hagler rank as some of the best, Morales is up there also, but i always say when it comes to the cream of the crop in terms of a tested ****in chin, i've got LaMotta and McCullough

Stinky gloves · Apr 21, 2010

bull**** list ... where is Floyd, where is PAC?!

Da Chin Chekka · Apr 21, 2010

Stinky gloves said: ↑

bull**** list ... where is Floyd, where is PAC?!
Click to expand...

Notice that there are no active boxers on the list, they might get reconised after they are done with their careers.

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The 10 best chins in boxing History

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