Former WBC Cruiserweight Champion Tony Bellew, has highlighted the fighter whom he believes to have had the ‘greatest chin of all-time in boxing.
There have been a number of legendary boxers throughout the history of the sport that have proven to have granite chins, but it is ex-WBC heavyweight champion Oliver McCall who received high praise from the bomber.
McCall pulled off a major upset when he upset Lennox Lewis in his own backyard in 1994, knocking ‘The Lion’ out in London in just the second-round of their encounter.
The American made just one defence of the belt, defeating legendary but past-his-best heavyweight Larry Holmes, before losing out to Frank Bruno in a famous clash at Wembley Stadium.
18-months-later and McCall rematched Lewis in a bout remembered for all the wrong reasons, as the British-Canadian scored a fifth-round stoppage over McCall in a bizarre contest where the latter refused to fight or defend himself and burst into tears.
Despite the tough to watch scenes, Bellew had a more positive outlook on their battle, pointing out how impressive the chin of McCall was to withstand the pressure of Lewis, labelling his chin as the greatest of all-time on social media, and he is not alone in that opinion.
“You’ll not see a chin like McCall’s in boxing ever again! Greatest chin of all-time! Lennox is a monster and was teeing off on him while he was crying and it was doing no damage. Believe me, Lennox is amongst the biggest punchers the game’s seen!”
Astonishingly, McCall would return to the ring just nine months later and go on to have another 38 fights after the incident in his rematch with Lewis, with his most recent outing come in 2019, where he knocked out Hugo Lomeli (20-13-1) at the age of 54-years-old.