toughest middleweights ever

Greb and Marv

 

Mickey Walker, Dick Tiger and from more recent vintage Jorge Castro

 

I would go with Mickey Walker.

Some of the knock down drag out wars he got into with heavyweights were unreal.

 

there are loads of tough and durable men...

but in Hagler's time middleweights weren't fighting BIGGER MEN including Heavyweights, Jake too fought a lot of Welter cum middleweights.

But in Walker and Greb's days, weights, well did they even matter.

but there must be many, many tough Boys who were hard ****ers plain n simple.

 

Good calls on LaMotta, Ketchel, Fitzsimmons, Hagler, Walker, Greb, Zale... I'd even add Leonard.

Robinson was scary when he got up from a knockdown, and he always did. But toughest I'd say is Hagler since there is more tape on him than other guys. He looked like you could hit him with a bat and he'd still be standing, only more angry and eventually he'd make you pay for it. Also Zale's wars with Graziano really showed how tough he was.

 

All you need to know about La Motta's toughness and chin is he fought Robinson 6 times and and was never decked.

 

A good thread and I don't mean to hijack it but are we to say that Chuvalo was the 'toughest' HW ever? Being a punching bag and never going down is certainly admirable (granted, Jake had more quality wins than Chuvalo by a mile) but I'd hardly put LaMotta in ANY ATG middle ranking. When he beat a young RR he outweighed him by 15 pounds.
I'd give any number of great middles (if they could punch and 'slice' along with a good set of whiskers) the nod over him despite the difference in eras. My $0.02.

 

Leonard...as in Sugar Ray Leonard?

Nah, he is not in this conversation. I could go for Langford being one of the toughest ever to fight at middlewieght. Jake has to be up there.

 

Randy Turpin. Not as durable as Hagler or the Bull but just as fearless and relentless.

 

Harvin Magler

 

I put him in the mix just for the fact that you were in danger till the last bell, no quit in him, eventhough that has more to do with heart and determination than toughness, true.

 

I get what you say,I suppose it comes down to how we define tough.

 

In a p4p pound sense but Leonard hadone fight there with Hagler. That is not enough to be named with the great middleweights. These guys did it over years and years and against guys from different weightclasses.

 

Essentially this. So many iron-hard, bleeping tough sob's in this division. Guys with stoppage losses on their records, for instance Zale and Roldan, were still incredibly tough, tough men.

 

I guess its how you define 'tough'. Just as a shout out to one of my favorite fighters, Rodrigo Valdez, he would have been a tough out in any era. Many don't realize that Valdez turned pro in 1962 at the age of 16! and labored for years in SA before getting Clancy and coming north to the US. He and Monzon were both ''past-it'' when they finally fought.
Greb? Langford? BMF'ers. Put them in the modern era and they're whomping the elite's ass big time.
IMHO, I think Valdez would slice Lamotta into a pulp given the proper parameters and equalizing out the era differences.