what were the best shots Oliver McCall took that earned him his reputation as greatest chin in boxin

Well-pretty impressive. It would be more so if he did not have the extreme spoling type of style I referred to. Note among his overwhelmingly losing record some no contests.

 

No Sir, getting to 25-5 with good enough competition to earn a title shot against Lennox Lewis is not a pretty average record.
Then reaching 51-8 (2 NC) when you are 42 is way better than the average fighter.
In my list of excellent boxers he fought above I forgot Seldon, Akinwande (Then 40-1-1) Juan Aralos Gomez, then 42-1-& again, those he fought after age 42 (until 54) had a good cumulative record.

Perspective is often lost because we can see flaws of any boxer, especially compared to the greatest of any era.
But someone like McCall & say the other man who stopped Lewis, Rahman, were still World Class boxers.

There is not just a boxing Pantheon & everyone else is bums!
If that was so, the ATGs would not be very special, since it is uncommon they fight each other, & truly rare that they do when each are peak.

These guys still earned their top slots, at their bests easily within the top 10 contenders in the world.
And if HWs, that means they could beat (up) 99.9(... + some unknown # of 9s) of the world's adult male population in any boxing match.

 

I meant McCall’s record was average until the early 90’s. I wondered why he never fought Tyson in the 80’s. When I checked, his 80’s record was solid but nothing special. Different story in the 90’s. He fought lots of tough guys then. I wondered why he didn’t get a shot in 1989 or 1990. At that point, he didn’t have enough good wins.

 

I think McCall was being discussed as a possible Tyson opponent if he beat Douglas in 89. He would of been thought of as a warmup much like Douglas was.

Also Jose Ribalta was considered to be the Tokyo fight for Tyson but got dropped or looked poor in his previous fight.