How great was mike Tyson's chin?

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shanegotu11

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Where would you guys rate it? I'd say it was one of the better ones.
 
People could give you a list a mile long with people with better chins "one of the better ones" doesn't lose by stoppage 5 times.
 
He had a great chin but i wouldnt say it was one of the best.

There are multiple things that make for a great chin, and physically, he had all the qualities that are generally assigned: prominent chin, thick neck, big skull.

Problem with him was that his style was taxing, his conditioning could be lacking, and most significantly, he was not very mentally tough (he had quit in him). I would attribute at least a couple of his KO losses to one or all of the above.
 
Buddy Revell said:
He had a great chin but i wouldnt say it was one of the best.

There are multiple things that make for a great chin, and physically, he had all the qualities that are generally assigned: prominent chin, thick neck, big skull.

Problem with him was that his style was taxing, his conditioning could be lacking, and most significantly, he was not very mentally tough (he had quit in him). I would attribute at least a couple of his KO losses to one or all of the above.
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This is a very good description. His TKO or KO losses were all due to poor conditioning or the fact that he was mentally broken and lost his desire to continue. As far as I remember, he was never KO'ed or dropped in a fight until he was broken mentally. And this is usually due to a lack of top level conditioning and heart.
 
ssx said:
This is a very good description. His TKO or KO losses were all due to poor conditioning or the fact that he was mentally broken and lost his desire to continue. As far as I remember, he was never KO'ed or dropped in a fight until he was broken mentally. And this is usually due to a lack of top level conditioning and heart.
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Pretty much agree. (Though i think Lewis and Douglas both scored legit knockouts)

The bolded:
iirc, despite his constant motion and aggression he never even suffered any flash knockdowns. He had as strong a core and legs as any HW ever. That helps too.
 
In the Douglas fight he was not in proper fighting shape and that was the main reason he was KO'ed, he could not maintain his pace and aggression, still was a hell of an uppercut Buster landed though. In the Lennox fight again, he was there for a paycheck. He mentally packed it in after the first round IMO, and actually could have took the easy way out and quit much earlier but didn't.
 
I don't know. My first thought is that he had a good chin that stood up to tremendous punches. To my recollection, he was never decked by a one-off punch. His KO losses (Douglas, first fight with Holyfield, Lewis, McBride), to me, seemed to be a product of really bad conditioning and training (and in the case of the first Holyfield fight, a series of camouflaged headbutts). Anybody with a chin will eventually get buried if they don't have the cardio to respond intelligently.

Tyson, at his peak, had great defense and an overwhelming style, so it was hard to hit him cleanly and often. When could guys sit down on their punches without getting smoked? When he did get hit, he never wilted. That makes me think he's got a strong chin.

Overall, I think his durability can't be written off by dismissive statements that say something like "a guy with a good chin wouldn't have been ko'd". That line of thinking is ignorant. A fairer statement to make is that it was never often tested when he was a capable fighter.
 
ssx said:
In the Douglas fight he was not in proper fighting shape and that was the main reason he was KO'ed, he could not maintain his pace and aggression, still was a hell of an uppercut Buster landed though. In the Lennox fight again, he was there for a paycheck. He mentally packed it in after the first round IMO, and actually could have took the easy way out and quit much earlier but didn't.
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That isn't true. He poured it on one last time before the round he got KO'd. Lennox himself said he felt rough after the fight. He gave it everything and threw caution to the wind one last round in the hope of a knockout. He won't have had a shot against Lennox aside from getting a lucky homerun and he knew it by round 4 or so. The KO was pretty brutal and Tyson stayed in a dark room for weeks afterwards due to the affects from the concussion.
 
The punishment I saw Tyson take ........ I have never seen another fighter take without being dropped MUCH sooner. Yeah he went down a few times only after taking enough hammer shots to put just about anyone else down 5 -10 times. He was a shell of his former self when he fought Lewis and still held up from some vicous shots.

Maybe Ali had a better chin but I never saw him fight live.
 
Buddy Revell said:
Pretty much agree. (Though i think Lewis and Douglas both scored legit knockouts)

The bolded:
iirc, despite his constant motion and aggression he never even suffered any flash knockdowns. He had as strong a core and legs as any HW ever. That helps too.
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He took some serious bombs from Ruddock...Like nuclear holocaust type bombs and kept coming. so it's hard to tell. I probably agree the times he didn't get up was because he could'nt find a good enough reason to. The Douglas KO was legit and so was the Lewis. Holyfield and the others were sort of "get me outta here" KOs.
 
shanegotu11 said:
Where would you guys rate it? I'd say it was one of the better ones.
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I'd say he had an excellent chin. Buster dropped him with about 6 clean shots and he was still trying to get up. That hook Bruno caught him with in their first fight would have stopped most guys. Holyfield had to land repeatedly to get the stoppage. It may not be an all time best chin but it's in the conversation.
 
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Buddy Revell said:
He had a great chin but i wouldnt say it was one of the best.

There are multiple things that make for a great chin, and physically, he had all the qualities that are generally assigned: prominent chin, thick neck, big skull.

Problem with him was that his style was taxing, his conditioning could be lacking, and most significantly, he was not very mentally tough (he had quit in him). I would attribute at least a couple of his KO losses to one or all of the above.
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I don't think we should count post expiration date stoppages.
 
StickAndMove said:
I don't think we should count post expiration date stoppages.
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Roght there with ya. I choose to ignore the last coupla stoppages of his career. Especially when assesing his chin.
 
ssx said:
This is a very good description. His TKO or KO losses were all due to poor conditioning or the fact that he was mentally broken and lost his desire to continue. As far as I remember, he was never KO'ed or dropped in a fight until he was broken mentally. And this is usually due to a lack of top level conditioning and heart.
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A "chin" is an abstract term regarding how easily someone can be stopped, parsing it further is silly. Tyson was prone to tiring in the later rounds, which made him vulnerable to getting stopped.
 
ssx said:
In the Douglas fight he was not in proper fighting shape and that was the main reason he was KO'ed, he could not maintain his pace and aggression, still was a hell of an uppercut Buster landed though. In the Lennox fight again, he was there for a paycheck. He mentally packed it in after the first round IMO, and actually could have took the easy way out and quit much earlier but didn't.
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It was but that didn't finish the business, he still needed 4 or 5 more punches after this to do the job.
 
Against Lennox, he took an ungodly amount of punishment before he actually got stopped.
 
Tyson's chin was nothing special (ok don't compare him to regular mortals, but to other elite boxers)

GGG's chin, now that's a unique piece of kryptonite
 
Yourstepdad said:
Tyson's chin was nothing special (ok don't compare him to regular mortals, but to other elite boxers)

GGG's chin, now that's a unique piece of kryptonite
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Yeah, it really isnt
 
Prime Tyson was tough. What he took from Douglas in the first 9 rounds was serious punishment. I agree with all the comments about the conditioning / mental flaws.
 
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