How Does a Fighter Lose His Chin?

[Howlin Mad Missy]

Im of the thought that once you have been out cold unless you are of very stern stuff ;or you rebuild up your beard again with some very hard sparring and serious testing in slow stages:You could have a problem.

Other wise for many the original spark out can pave the way to you going out to it a touch easier the next time around and so on and so forth. Our cells have a memory as does the shut down process and also the fight or flight process . If it helped us to survive a bad situation once, its not unheard of in some situations (Not always fighting) to automatically and subconsciously head for the shut down mode the next time around.

It's an interesting point. Of course everything slows down as we age but I do wonder how much mental toughness comes in to play.

[Youngblood]

It is often a situation of condition, as any drain on weight will essentially leave a body weaker then when it is running optimally. We tend to look at the chin, and not the other many determining factors, conditioning, age, and as Andre has suggested reoccurance and it's effects, as Missy suggests, mental toughness. etc.

While fighters often either do, or don't have a chin, this being established usually early in their career, there are still many things they can do physically to increase it's durability. So therefore also, when a fighters 'loses their chin' again, many variable can also come into play.

[J_Undisputed]

Barring any weight drain issues for individual fights that create dangers by lowering the water that slows down the rapid acceleration from a punch which sneds your brain crashing against the inside of a skull.... Some fighters can get concussed from punches that don't cause knock downs or leave them on rubber legs and never know it.

Everytime you get a concussion, you become more susceptible to getting the next one. It takes less and less to suffer a concussion after each successive concussion. With sufficient rest and time off, you can heal up and feel better. It still doesnt take any of the milage off that you have put on your brain. Its the reason many athletes (like nfl Qb's) wind up with post concussion syndrome. PCS makes it feel like you have a concussion all the time. Most noted is usually the balance problems/dizzyness/light headed feeling, constant fatigue and headaches. Eventually with enough rest, this goes away also but its truly a dangerous sign that your brain has reached its limit of abuse.

So even the punches that don't do a fighter in right away, eventually will.

[JazMerkin]

Barring any weight drain issues for individual fights that create dangers by lowering the water that slows down the rapid acceleration from a punch which sneds your brain crashing against the inside of a skull.... Some fighters can get concussed from punches that don't cause knock downs or leave them on rubber legs and never know it.

Everytime you get a concussion, you become more susceptible to getting the next one. It takes less and less to suffer a concussion after each successive concussion. With sufficient rest and time off, you can heal up and feel better. It still doesnt take any of the milage off that you have put on your brain. Its the reason many athletes (like nfl Qb's) wind up with post concussion syndrome. PCS makes it feel like you have a concussion all the time. Most noted is usually the balance problems/dizzyness/light headed feeling, constant fatigue and headaches. Eventually with enough rest, this goes away also but its truly a dangerous sign that your brain has reached its limit of abuse.

So even the punches that don't do a fighter in right away, eventually will.

This pretty much says it all. Also as others have mentioned, draining weight makes it difficult, particularly as it becomes harder to make the weight because of a lack of conditioning (e.g. Hatton). Also the mental factor of being KO'd once, especially when you believe yourself to have an indestructible chin, can lead to weaknesses in that area in the future. Here's hoping Margarito has to deal with that. But the above post is the best on here at explaining how a chin goes.

[LEGION]

Hatton didn't lose his chin; he's got like 3 now.

[Dean Duke]

Last time I looked on the Hatton site it looked like four chins

I do think J. Undisputed post sums it all up TBH.

[ElTerribleMorales]

simple, relying on your chin too much, this is what happened with Morales, he chose to rely on his chin instead of his boxing skills most the time, and well his resistance was worn down, same can be said about Margarito, Hatton, and McCullough

[ono]

There isn't an exact answer but there are a lot of variables that people don't tend to talk about.

I'll start with Hatton. It's a misconception that he used to have a great chin. He's been hurt several times in his career. Even a fair few times beforew he came close to crossing the Atlantic. Eamonn Magee, Vince Phillips, Ben Tackie and even Gilbert Quiros almost ten years ago hurt him pretty badly. Then there was Luis Collazo, Mayweather, Juan Lazcano and then Manny. The problem is, he looked the most hurt against Mayweather, Collazo and Manny so it's easy to say his punch resistance has gone. Like i said earlier it's not necessarily the case. Those 3 fighters throw combinations at great speed and Hatton has never had an asnwer for it. I've said it a few times before, but he got away with when he was younger because he was supposed to be facing guys that don't quite have what it takes to follow up when he gets hurt. Quiros, Lazcano, Phillips, Tackie and to an extent Tsyzu don't throw and land with the speed, regularity and accuracy to take advantage of Hatton when they have had him in trouble. Tszyu landed a few very good single shots but nothing like what Mayweather, Collazo and Manny did.

Sometimes the match-making isn't as hell bent on making the fighter look good as it is when he's an up and coming prospect. I'm pretty sure if you'd have put Hatton in against the speed and accuracy Mayweather, Pac and Collazo had, he would have had the same trouble.