BoxRec

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=008479

235 fights and only 2 ko losses BY CUTS. i wonder how many guys in history match hagler and lamotta's chin and you never hear about them because they don't get the p.r. judging by his record alone, i would put this guy there.

Its very few people that can claim that they have seen a fight with Bonson that ended early: http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=009103

here's another: Luis Federico Thompson, 160 fights, only one ko loss, WOW!

Gorilla Jones, 146 Total bouts and I don't think he was ever even knocked down. That was facing such hard hitters as Freddie Steele, Alabama Kid, "KO" Kelly, Johnny Romero, Tommy Freeman, Harry Smith, Wesley Ketchell, Paul Pirrone and Frank Battaglia to name a few!

.....kid gavilan usually gets credit for having a great chin...but so did his rival, billy graham....who doesn't.

barry wrote:Gorilla Jones, 146 Total bouts and I don't think he was ever even knocked down. That was facing such hard hitters as Freddie Steele, Alabama Kid, "KO" Kelly, Johnny Romero, Tommy Freeman, Harry Smith, Wesley Ketchell, Paul Pirrone and Frank Battaglia to name a few!

Christ! Did he wear a football helmit

Gorilla Jones probably could take a good punch, but the main reason he never was knocked down is that he was a safety-first fighter if there ever was one. He was a real spoiler when he got into trouble. Notice his no contest fights with Jackie Fields, Harry Smith, and Ben Jeby, and his disqualifications in fights with Marcel Thil, Frankie O'Brien, and a couple of others. Obviously he was a very good fighter, but he tended to be too "cute" to gain the kind of popularity that might have been expected.

pringle wrote:http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=008479

235 fights and only 2 ko losses BY CUTS. i wonder how many guys in history match hagler and lamotta's chin and you never hear about them because they don't get the p.r. judging by his record alone, i would put this guy there.

Quite a story that of Angel Robinson Garcia. Even a young annd vicious Roberto Duran couldnt knock him out. Here's a great article from Enrique Encinosa...

The Great Globetrotter: The Life And Times Of Angel Robinson Garcia
By Enrique Encinosa

The news came down through the Little Havana grapevine that Angel Robinson Garcia died in Cuba.

He was a flawed diamond, a Renaissance oil masterpiece with chili stains. Angel was a fighter of tremendous ability but his lifestyle, which eventually destroyed his liver and kidneys, was what kept him from gaining belts and fame.

Still, even pickled on booze or stoned on weed, in a career that spawned three decades, Angel Robinson Garcia was a ranked contender in two divisions, fighting at least 225 fights in twenty-one countries and four continents. He was the supreme globetrotter in boxing history. Despite his wild lifestyle the Cuban fighter was never late, nor did he ever cancel a fight.

In 1955, at the age of eighteen, Angel Garcia turned pro, after winning a Cuban national amateur championship. The young lightweight patterned his boxing style after his idol, Sugar Ray Robinson. Thus the handsome young fighter adopted the ring name of Angel Robinson Garcia.

With his flashy moves, Garcia reeled off twenty-four wins out of twenty-six fights. They were hard fights for small purses. Richie Riesgo, a veteran trainer who worked with Angel Robinson related a memorable anecdote.

"Angel was booked to fight Chico Morales," Riesgo said, "In Santiago de Cuba, and the trip by bus took fourteen hours. When we arrived they had a carnival that had brought thousands of tourists into the city and there were no hotel rooms. So, we went to an all night movie theatre and sat through several showings of the same film, taking little naps but waking up all the time. After that we went to a park bench and that was worse. In the morning we went to the weigh-in, had breakfast and sat through more showings of the same movie. We were exhausted, but Angel Robinson looked very good in the ring that night. He won on points against Morales who was a good prospect."

The fight with Morales in Santiago de Cuba is not listed in the record books, being among those bouts that slipped away from record keepers.

Between 1955 and 1961, Garcia resided in Cuba, but began his travels by fighting main events in Mexico, Venezuela, Panama and the United States.

"He did not care who he fought," Riesgo said, "all he wanted was to have a good time. Sometimes he trained hard and other times he didn't but he drank and chased women every day. In Cuba the boxing commission for a while suspended him. He was on a winning streak but his adventures became public gossip and the boxing authorities enacted a moral clause. Did he change? No way. He would have sex the night before a big fight, after the weigh-in, anytime and all the time. Money went through his fingers, never in the pockets. He borrowed so many advances from a promoter that after a fight he was still two hundred in the hole. Angel Robinson had a lot of ability and heart but his reason for living was to have a good time."

Young and quick, Angel Robinson fought anybody anywhere. In Venezuela he drew and lost to future junior welter king Carlos Hernandez, a hard slugger. In Havana rings he defeated rated lightweight Alfredo Urbina, split two with future welterweight contender Jose Stable, and drew and lost to another brilliant prospect, Douglas Valliant, who would eventually fight Carlos Ortiz for the lightweight crown. By 1961, Angel Robinson was a fringe contender in the lightweight division with a respectable 42-14-2 record.

Politics intervened. Fidel Castro was on its way to establish a dictatorship in Cuba. Professional boxing was about to be banned. Angel Robinson Garcia did not like communism and an altercation with a Cuban soldier landed him in a prison cell for several days. As soon as he could, the gifted lightweight headed for Miami Beach.


The Fifth Street Gym was in its glory days. A young heavyweight named Cassius Clay and newly crowned light-heavyweight champion Willie Pastrano were two of the stars of the Dundee brothers. Chris and Angelo scooped almost all the Cuban fighters leaving the island.

"Chris had worked with all the Cuban promoters," boxing historian Hank Kaplan said, "and Angelo went to Havana constantly, taking fighters over there and even picking up Spanish. So when these fighters showed up in Miami they would look for Angelo and Chris to train, manage and promote them and it was a hell of a group. Luis Rodriguez, Jose Napoles and Jose Legra became champions. Florentino Fernandez and Douglas Valliant were top rated contenders and both had title shots and Angel Robinson Garcia was rated as a lightweight and junior welter."

"The first time I saw Angel Robinson," Kaplan said, "he came into the gym dressed in an expensive suit and puffing on a cigar. He was a unique character, always smiling and joking around. A very likable man who could have matched Lew Jenkins at a bar stool."

Angelo Dundee lined up fights geared to take Garcia to a world title. Angel outscored Hilton Smith, a fighter who held a win over Napoles, and beat Jimmy Mackey, a good Florida lightweight.

"He looked sharp," Angelo said, "and then I get an offer to put Angel in against Rafiu King, a European contender, in Paris. It was one of the big mistakes of my career. I sent Angel over for one fight and he stayed for ten years."

"I could have promoted him to a championship," the late Chris Dundee once remarked, "but he was unpredictable. He had a couple of good wins with us and we were guiding him, making the right matches, keeping him in shape and suddenly he's in France."

Paris was made for Angel Robinson Garcia. Wine was cheap and the nightlife was excellent. Garcia was in his prime, his face slightly marked but still handsome, and French girls loved his happy-go-lucky charm. Angel Robinson stayed in Paris, somehow obtaining a temporary residence permit.


French promoters loved his smooth style, which drew crowds that included famous actors like Alain Delon and Jean Paul Belmondo. Garcia was willing to fight anyone on the planet and he fought the best, losing to junior welter champ Eddie Perkins and to the lightning quick Ismael Laguna, but knocking out the highly regarded Ray Adigun in six and defeating Rafiu King in a rematch.

In Paris he married the daughter of a shopkeeper, which meant that for however many days the honeymoon lasted Angel did not go off night clubbing with his new found French buddies, an oversight he remedied quickly.

After his marriage collapsed, the Cuban fighter drifted to Spain where he linked up with a fellow countryman, Evelio Mustelier, known in boxing circles as Kid Tunero. A soft spoken, well mannered, middle-age man, Tunero was the antithesis of Garcia, the wild child of boxing.

In his youth, Tunero had been a ranked contender, an excellent orthodox boxer. He was so good that as a middleweight, he outscored a young light heavyweight named Ezzard Charles. Tunero had settled in Madrid where he was a highly regarded boxing trainer, owned a gym and managed some very good fighters, including another fellow Cuban, the mini-Ali featherweight Jose Legra.

Spain also suited Garcia. He knew the language and wine was cheap. He fought main events but did not mind filling in a prelim to help out a promoter or make enough to cover party expenses. Rolando Fernandez, a young Cuban exile was part of the Tunero team.

"I drove them around," Fernandez, a Miami businessman related years later, "and I worked buckets, whatever. I was young and it was a fun time. Tunero was always booking Legra in cities and towns all over Spain, fighting club fighters and local heroes at very little risk. Angel would ride along even if he did not have a fight booked. We would pull into a town and Angel Robinson would weigh in 'just in case' and inquire where the tavern was located. Twenty minutes in town and he was sitting in a Spanish tavern, puffing on a smoke and polishing off a bottle of wine. Tunero would show up and say something like –there's a fallout but they need a middleweight for an eight and he's fifteen pounds heavier than you are- and Angel would say –I'll take it. I'll be in the dressing room on time.- And after Tunero went back to the arena or bullring, Angel would smile and say –Well, now that I have another payday coming we can order another bottle before the fight.-A couple of hours later with a good wine buzz, he would take out the middleweight. He was unique."

Angel Robinson trained and partied, looking to fight anywhere there was a peseta, lira or guinea to be made. He fought in England, visiting pubs before and after weigh-ins, also traveling to Switzerland for a ten-round draw and a couple of one night stands with easy women. Angel drank good wine before trading leather in Italy, then went to war in Belgium, Tunis, Algiers and Finland, where he lost to Olli Maki.

After five years in Spain he became restless. Ever since leaving Cuba he had wandered like a gypsy. Packing his bags Angel Robinson moved to Italy, where he found passionate women and good Chianti. He was no longer young; he had become a mature veteran. His handsome face was slowly flattening and his once smooth eyebrows showed thin lines of scar tissue.

In Rome Robinson Garcia became a local favorite. He won, lost and drew with world rated lightweight Paul Armstead and knocked out L.C. Morgan, a dangerous puncher who held a win over Napoles. Angel lost to world champs Bruno Arcari and Carmelo Bossi.

Growing homesick for his Cuban buddies, Garcia rejoined Tunero and Legra in Spain, where he spent another three years trading leather. He was fading, losing more frequently, but Angel Robinson was by this time a very seasoned, tricky fighter. He was seldom hurt even in defeat. Most of his losses were to top European fighters like Roger Menetrey and Cemal Kamaci.

Deciding to change continents, Angel Robinson Garcia headed back to the Americas. He was in his mid-thirties, no longer rated and showing the wear and tear of his turbulent life. He was offered a fight in Panama against an undefeated young prospect with 21 knockouts in his 25 victories. Garcia hopped on a plane and fought Roberto Duran in the stone man's backyard.

"He was dangerous," Garcia said in an interview years later, "but I knew how to work the ring. I shuffled back and forth and worked angles and kept him out of range, confusing him...I caught him with some good shots but he was too young and strong. He won the decision but after the fight he looked at me and said –Cuban, you know a lot?"

A few months later Angel went the distance with Esteban De Jesus, Duran's nemesis.

Returning to Miami after his ten-year tour of Europe, Garcia contacted Angelo and Chris Dundee once again. In Miami he defeated club fighters Jimmy Hamm and J.T. Dowe before losing in a marihuana haze to Saoul Mamby and Sugar Ray Seales.

Frankie Otero was a world rated lightweight working out at the Fifth Street Gym when Robinson returned to Miami.

"At the time he fought Hamm and Dowe," Frankie remembers, "Robinson was a shot fighter but he was very clever. Even out of condition he knew how to pace the fight, resting in the clinches and with his ass on the ropes, bobbing around and making the other guy miss. He knew every move and trick in the trade and he took advantage of every opportunity you gave him. He was very good and he had a chin like granite. I think he was only stopped a couple of times in over two hundred fights."

Robinson Garcia continued to fight top men. At thirty-nine Angel lost a decision to Wilfredo Benitez, the teenager who was destined to win three belts.

His last moment of glory came in 1976, when a Philadelphia promoter was looking for an opponent to fatten the record of junior middleweight prospect Perry Abney, a seasoned veteran with a good left hook and nine wins in his last ten bouts. The purse was insignificant, only seven hundred dollars, but when no one accepted the grizzled Angel Robinson stepped up to the plate. With a mellow buzz the ancient warrior gave Abney a boxing lesson, stopping the local hero in nine rounds.

In his last years of campaigning, Angel Robinson lost to former welterweight champion Billy Backus and to Clyde Gray, a rated Canadian fighter. His career ended in New York with a loss by KO to Willie "The Worm" Monroe.

Garcia's record is incomplete as his travels took him to far corners of the planet and although he claimed about 300 fights, the accounting so far is 225. His record as far as can be determined was 129-76-20. Of his 124 victories, 49 were knockouts.

Banned from fighting in the U.S. by commissions who rightly argued he was too old and worn out, Angel returned to France. His application for a boxing license was rejected. The man who had fought main events in twenty-one countries had finally lost his trade.

Robinson Garcia was in his forties, but the years of substance abuse, hard fights and daily binges had destroyed his health. His eyebrows were crisscrossed with scar tissue and his face was reshaped from the handsome youth he had once been; his liver and kidneys were failing him, the end result of decades of alcoholic abuse. He could not work.

In France he became a "clocharde," which is an elegant sounding word to describe a homeless panhandler residing in the bowels of the Paris subway. A friend in France wrote to tell me that Jean Paul Belmondo, the great actor recognized the beggar as one of his favorite fighters, interceding on his behalf.

Although the Cuban government did not like professional fighters, Castro has always attempted to maintain a political relationship with European artists and intellectuals. When Belmondo made a request the Castro government allowed the old globetrotter to return home to die. Frail and sick, the nomad fighter returned home to die.

He is gone now, the way of all flesh. Angel was the untamed party animal who self-destructed with gusto, yet I feel no anguish at his demise. He chose his road and traveled the highway without the twisted rage of a Tyson or the psychological angst of a Golota. Robinson Garcia enjoyed his smoke, wine and women without regret and did it all with a certain style, with a happy buzz smile and a wink of complicity, always on time, never complaining, always in the fray.

Adios, old warrior.

Regarding Gorilla Jones, Freddie Steele had him down twice I think in their 2nd meeting in Seattle. Steele also dropped him in their 3rd fight.

Id like to mention George Chuvalo not only has he never lost to KO hes never been knocked down

British Middleweight Jock McAvoy had a great chin.

As did another Middleweight 'Bad' Bennie Briscoe from Philly.

Cam wrote:Id like to mention George Chuvalo not only has he never lost to KO hes never been knocked down

I thought Oscar Bonavena dropped George in their 1966 fight?

Chuvola though has one of the best chins ever.

Chris Eubank had a cast iron chin.

Former WBA Light-Welterweight Champion Juan Martin Coggi had a good chin.

Sugar Ray Robinson must have had a good chin. Robinson had over 200 fights and fought until he was almost 45, and was never knocked out in the ring. Robinson does have a TKO on his record, but that was a loss to Joey Maxim for the Light Heavyweight title in 1952. It was so hot that night that the referee had to be replaced after the 10th round. Anyway, Robinson did not answer the bell for the 14th round in that fight due to heat exhaustion. It is in the record books as the only time that Robinson was ever stopped during his career. I believe that the temperature was 104 degrees that night.

Jim Jeffries and Rocky Marciano deserve a mention, everyone who wrote about both men at the time, and who faced both of them, said they had an almost inhuman ability to absorb punishment. Although Rocky went down against Moore, Moore was one of the best punchers of all time. It's comparable to Duran getting startched by Hearns.

Wayne McCulloch's chin is all time great, so is LaMotta.

A lot of guys like Bonson, aren't trying to win, so rarely get knocked out, same with Julius Francis.

People like LaMotta, who came to win, and yet were never actually knocked out fully, had incredible abilities to withstand being rendered unconscious.

Robinson's speed of movement probably made it incredibly hard to nail him with flush shots.

Dick Tiger, Carmen Basilo and Gene Fullmer all had great chins... Fullmer was koed by Robinson but can't hold that against him as that shot would have koed most Middles I think. Tiger was Koed at end of career by Bob Foster but again, who's holding that against him!. 8)
Henry Armstrong is another with a concrete chin.

Salvador Sanchez had a great chin.

Azumah Nelson had a great chin. The Sanchez stoppage was as much to do with stamina as anything else, with the Ghana great taking the fight at short notice.

Getting back to Robinson, it is true that he was a great boxer who was hard to hit, especially when he was in his prime. However, Robinson had over 200 fights, and fought well past his prime. I read someplace that Robinson won because he was a great boxer when he was young, and won because of his chin when he was older and past his best years. Sounds a little bit like Muhummed Ali.

Anyway, over 200 fights with only one stoppage due to the heat. Robinson must have taken some good shots in that many fights, and he must have had a good chin.

With regards to the Joey Maxim - Ray Robinson fight For the sake of balance I thinks it's only fair to point out that it was just as hot in that ring for Maxin.

Maxim had a great line after the fight. Maxim said something like," They weren't piping in air conditioning to me."

Not meaning to cheat Maxim out of some glory, but I think that it was the heat that knocked out Robinson more than Maxim. On a night with the temperature normal, I believe that Robinson wins that fight. Just my opinion.

......i think the point here about the maxim/robinson fight is that it was not robinson's chin that was the cause of the knockout....and we must agree that based on his long record....and he WAS GETTING HIT and even knocked down in some of his later fights, he was never counted out.

jimbob wrote:

KOJOE90 wrote:

Cam wrote:Id like to mention George Chuvalo not only has he never lost to KO hes never been knocked down

I thought Oscar Bonavena dropped George in their 1966 fight?

Chuvola though has one of the best chins ever.

I thought he was stopped by frazier, and foreman.

He was stopped on his feet, he was never put down by either Frazier or Foreman.

...joey maxim. fought as a heavyweight when he was really a light heavy....and he won the latter title when he dropped down to that division. fought some of the best fighters of his day. kayoed once... caught cold by the murderous curtis shepard....won the rematch by decision a few weeks later...(that's the way they fought rematches then.) great defensive fighter....but the chin had to be something.....just check his record out on boxrec.