BoxRec

Not a great fighter but what a chin he had. The best ever? What do you think? Only ever stopped once, but that was on cuts.

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=004537

12 wins (5 ko's) - 41 losses - 4 draws

Big punchers he went the distance with included -

Oliver McCall (fought last week, Wilson aged 50)
Samuel Peter
Hasim Rahman
Ike Ibeabuchi
Andrew Golota
Shannon Briggs
Ray Mercer (held him to a draw)
Jeremy Williams
David Izon

Also went the distance with Greg Page, Carl Williams, Orlin Norris, Larry Donald, Chazz Witherspoon, Kirk Johnson and Tyrell Biggs to name a few.

He does have a good chin, but he also tends to hold when he gets caught with a good punch. Natural instinct of course, but I don't think he has one of the greatest chins.

Danny Blake had the best chin I ever saw. This guy had a bolwing ball covered in cement for a head

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=5236

never stopped in all his fights. Had a record like Mo Wilson's

cybox wrote:Danny Blake had the best chin I ever saw. This guy had a bolwing ball covered in cement for a head

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=5236

never stopped in all his fights. Had a record like Mo Wilson's

Glad someone mentioned Blake.
I fought on the same card with him once or twice.( When he fought Jeff Lanas.)
Real nice guy.

I thought Ray Mercer had the best chin I've seen on a heavyweight. The punishment he took from Tommy Morrison was incredible before he turned it round and won.
I saw Mercer fight MMA against a Dutch guy (Remy Bonjasky I think), and he got KOd with a drop kick in about 20 seconds. It was probably the most stunning thing I've ever seen in combat sports, I never thought anyone could do that to Mercer. But I suppose a kick carries a lot more force than a punch, and MMA / K1 wasnt really Ray's thing.

Plus Ray was shot to sh#t.

PS no Wilson not great chin, great smotherer of punches. Bigfoot better.

overhand_right wrote:Plus Ray was shot to sh#t.

PS no Wilson not great chin, great smotherer of punches. Bigfoot better.

You mean Everett 'Bigfoot' Martin? He was stopped several times, cleanly ko'ed a few of those as well, not sure why you would think he had a better chin than Wilson?

cybox wrote:Danny Blake had the best chin I ever saw. This guy had a bolwing ball covered in cement for a head

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=5236

never stopped in all his fights. Had a record like Mo Wilson's

Sure he was never stopped but he never fought the same level of opponents that Wilson did.

Remember also that Blake was just a little guy, a middleweight really and he put on some unuseful weight and fought heavies and still never was stopped.

expug wrote:Remember also that Blake was just a little guy, a middleweight really and he put on some unuseful weight and fought heavies and still never was stopped.

I know, I just think Wilson's chin has been tested by better fighters and bigger punchers than Blake fought. Wilson was also only really a blown up cruiserweight himself.

Controversial wrote:

overhand_right wrote:Plus Ray was shot to sh#t.

PS no Wilson not great chin, great smotherer of punches. Bigfoot better.

You mean Everett 'Bigfoot' Martin? He was stopped several times, cleanly ko'ed a few of those as well, not sure why you would think he had a better chin than Wilson?

Name the people who clean KO'd Bigfoot Martin, Boxing Expert who only knows fighters by looking over the alwasy misleading record sheet.

AndreWardFan2006 wrote:He does have a good chin, but he also tends to hold when he gets caught with a good punch. Natural instinct of course, but I don't think he has one of the greatest chins.

Yes, I agree with you here. The guy has never put in the extra effort to become a better boxer. Instead he just does the bare minimum when it comes to working on his boxing technique, because he knows that most referees will let him get away with all his holding and hugging tactics. He is hardly ever held accountable for his holding. I can only recall him being DQ'ed in his first fight with Oliver McCall for excessive holding. A fighter like Wilson should have more respect for the sport of boxing and learn to use his fists more than his hugging arms. Unfortunately, he gets away with it most of the time, and earns a decent paycheck here and there.

Does he have a great chin? I doubt it, but we will never know 100% if he does or not, since the verdict will forever be cloaked by his ugly holding and hugging defense.

Wilson is a great "survivor" but not neccesarily a "great" chin.

I think Chuvalo has to be up there, as well as Jerry Quarry. Stopped on cuts and knocked down by Chuvalo and Alexander (but he Chuvalo KO was more a screw-up than anything), but just watch the punches he takes from Frazier, Ali, Lyle, Foster, Norton etc. without going down. Never really knocked out for the count.

The guy had a head of cement, especially amazing considering he was not an overly thick man like a Mercer or Chuvalo.

Terence wrote:Oliver McCall always seems to have a solid chin.

James Toney to take some of the shots he took from Peter and only go down from a balance shot.

For a long time I thought Mercer and McCall were even as far has hard-heads go. But as time went on, McCall kept showing a granite chin as Mercers falters a little. So, to me, the award for best chin in the heavyweight division ( for the past 20 years ), Oliver McCall!

HeavyHitters wrote:

Terence wrote:Oliver McCall always seems to have a solid chin.

James Toney to take some of the shots he took from Peter and only go down from a balance shot.

For a long time I thought Mercer and McCall were even as far has hard-heads go. But as time went on, McCall kept showing a granite chin as Mercers falters a little. So, to me, the award for best chin in the heavyweight division ( for the past 20 years ), Oliver McCall!

But besides Lewis in their 2nd match, what big punchers has McCall faced??

McCall's resume just isn't strong enough for me to consider him the best chin.

Are we only talking heavyweights?

Then I go with Chuvalo.

Other weights -Jake La Motta and the Spaniard Ignacio Ara, never stopped in almost 180 bouts.

Randall Tex Cobb
George Chuvalo
Jake LaMotta
Everett Bigfoot Martin
Jim Jefferies


Cobb was only 'stopped' once and that might very well have been a dive, as it was the Dee Collier affair. Myself I think Cobb thrown the fight in order to make a killing off the long shot bet that a guy like Collier could actually stop Cobb.

Chuvalo was never cleanly knocked out, though I do think had the referee allowed his fight with Foreman go on for another 10 or so seconds we would have seen Chuvalo's first knockout loss.

Jak LaMotta was only stopped 3 times, that I can recall, once in the Billy Fox fight (which was a dive) once against Robinson in the St. valentine's Day Massacre and the last by 'Irish' Bob Murphy who was probably the hardest hitting LHW behind Foster and Spinks and LaMotta was passed his best (though LaMotta beat Murphy in a return).

Martin fought Bowe, Foreman and several other hard hitters and was rarely knocked off his feet let alone stopped cold. The Foreman fight went the distance, though Martin lost the USA network televised fight.

Jefferies could take a helluva beating only to come back to knock his man out. Fitzsimmons fucked him up bad for 8 rounds in their return only to blast him out with a single hook. It also took a prime Jack Johnson 15 rounds to stop a 6yrs inactive Jefferies who also had to lose 100 pounds and get into shape for 45 rounds---who also was sick that day.

Marvin Hagler must have one of the best chins ever - he was never even knocked down properly never mind knocked out! Plus he took some murderous punches from the likes of Hearns and Mugabi

Muhammad Ali, I think is pretty much 'king' in this category as far as modern day boxers is concerned, especially at HW. One of my favorite things about Ali was that any doubts he had in the 1960's were pretty much erased in the 1970's when he beat guys like Frazier, Norton, Foreman and even on the decline was able to win (though closely) over Shavers who was at his peak or near it.

The thing that got me was that only a handful of men ever dropped or staggered him: Cooper, Frazier, Shavers, Holmes, Wepner and someone else at the moment whose name escapes me but was before he ever fought Sonny Liston.

And the Wepner knockdown is disputable, Shavers could have went for the kayo but Ali managed to convince Earnie he was fooling that he was hurt, Cooper got the shot in because Ali got too cocky and over confident and the Holmes fight was when Ali was at the end of his rope.

What showed to me that Ali was more than meets the eye was the first Frazier fight. Though he lost, the story of the knockdown sticks out in my mind:

Ali whispers to Frazier 'You can't win, Allah wont let you win over me!' and Frazier snapped back 'Allah's going down tonight!' and slammed the infamous left hook and dropped Ali----and what's remarkable about it is that Ali got up just as quick as he was knocked down!

That's one of the things that surprised me most was that Foreman couldn't drop Ali, but Frazier who hit less hard as George, could. But then again Frazier's style was the best suited style to take away most of Ali's attributes as he was a swarmer and cut of the ring and nullified Ali's speed and made Ali infight---which Ali wasn't good at---and that was Frazier at his best, was his best night, best fight.

There will never again, in my mind, be as big a fight as that one, with two equally all-time great fighters, both undefeated with that much grit and determination and heart to win----it wasnt just a boxing match, it was a symbolism for all things in life. Those guys left their souls in there.

dempseyfire wrote:

HeavyHitters wrote:

Terence wrote:Oliver McCall always seems to have a solid chin.

James Toney to take some of the shots he took from Peter and only go down from a balance shot.

For a long time I thought Mercer and McCall were even as far has hard-heads go. But as time went on, McCall kept showing a granite chin as Mercers falters a little. So, to me, the award for best chin in the heavyweight division ( for the past 20 years ), Oliver McCall!

But besides Lewis in their 2nd match, what big punchers has McCall faced??

McCall's resume just isn't strong enough for me to consider him the best chin.

Go look at his record, and see for yourself, dude. Even with his hands at his side, Lewis couldn't put a dent in McCall's head.

I gotta throw in old-timer Joe Grim! Here was a man who was described as having no boxing talent whatsoever, but he was infamous for being incapable of being kayoed. Jack Johnson tried, as did Tommy Burns (in an exhibition) among other all-time greats---but even if they knocked him down a dozen times (which happened alot) he kept getting up. RING magazine at one time ranked him #1 (i think) when it came to a list of the toughest fighters in history.

What if I mentioned a guy who fought Sonny Liston, Earnie Shavers, Ken Norton, Zora Folley, Leotis Martin, Eddie Machen, Bernardo Mercado, Jeff Merritt and Mac Foster and never went down????

Scartissue

scartissue wrote:What if I mentioned a guy who fought Sonny Liston, Earnie Shavers, Ken Norton, Zora Folley, Leotis Martin, Eddie Machen, Bernardo Mercado, Jeff Merritt and Mac Foster and never went down????

Scartissue

Henry Clark ?

You got it, never been down. And that's formidible opposition. Liston, Norton and the rematch with Shavers he was stopped but he wouldn't topple over.

Scartissue

HeavyHitters wrote:

AndreWardFan2006 wrote:He does have a good chin, but he also tends to hold when he gets caught with a good punch. Natural instinct of course, but I don't think he has one of the greatest chins.

Yes, I agree with you here. The guy has never put in the extra effort to become a better boxer. Instead he just does the bare minimum when it comes to working on his boxing technique, because he knows that most referees will let him get away with all his holding and hugging tactics. He is hardly ever held accountable for his holding. I can only recall him being DQ'ed in his first fight with Oliver McCall for excessive holding. A fighter like Wilson should have more respect for the sport of boxing and learn to use his fists more than his hugging arms. Unfortunately, he gets away with it most of the time, and earns a decent paycheck here and there.

Does he have a great chin? I doubt it, but we will never know 100% if he does or not, since the verdict will forever be cloaked by his ugly holding and hugging defense.

Yes a lot like the wonderful "Huggybear" John Ruiz.