From “Iron Mike” to “Glass Joe”
Deconstructing the “glass jaw” label in boxing and combat sports.
Everyone knows of the “glass jaw”, a person who can’t take a punch to the mouth without taking a nap. Some of us learned from the unfortunate character pictured above. In casual combat sport discussions the label of “glass jaw” is thrown around constantly, as if every athlete can be categorized as either having a glass jaw or an iron chin.
Even professional sports commentators like ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith love to write off world class fighters as “done” the moment they suffer a knockout. As if the fighter’s chins are structurally unable to take a punch, ever again.
A more scientific review reveals that knockouts are almost 100% mental.
Right on the button
Most knockouts in boxing are scored by landing punches on the temporomandibular joint (TMJ).
The sudden shifting of the jawbone, and the brain smacking the insides of our skull, can overload our pain receptors and put us to sleep like a crashing computer. We can measure how hard fighters punch. It is much harder to calculate the circumstances required for a knockout. The boxing world has been training to deliver payloads to the TMJ for over 100 years. But it doesn’t always appear to take a big bomb to get the job done.
So if knockouts can be easy to score, why isn’t everyone getting dropped all the time? While fighters have been learning to punish the TMJ, they have also been learning to protect it. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. made a career out of his fantastic defense. It was hard to land a solid punch on any part of Mayweather, let alone the magic knockout button tucked neatly behind his shoulder. Mayweather is an extreme example, and fighters run the gamut from immaculate defense to face-first abandon.
The most important part of defense is awareness. Muhammad Ali was floored by a Joe Frazier hook that he literally did not see coming.
Frazier’s left hook came from below and beyond Ali’s peripheral vision. Ali was one of the few fighters in history who was fast enough to react to a punch that he saw. The reality for us normal humans is that we need more time to avoid a perfect punch, we have to predict the punches accurately before they come at us. Most professional fighters work on this level, studying and memorizing their opponents behaviors until they can predict their actions and defend against them with precision.
A trained fighter, who is aware, will make attempts to avoid damage: rolling, blocking, dodging, ducking, smothering, and countering. After a lifetime in the gym, a trained fighter has so many programmed physical reflexes to these situations that, all he or she must do is notice the incoming offense and their body will respond.
Failing to notice, or being “caught unaware”, generally results in a knockout. This is why “sucker punches” tend to be so effective.
A Simple View
Muhammad Ali was often regarded as having an “iron chin” after surviving megaton punchers like Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman. Ali was notably decked a few times, though: once by Henry Cooper, again by Frazier, and later by Chuck Wepner.
If you forget everything I said about awareness, you’re thinking more like a video game. Video games don’t account for the awareness of characters when calculating inflicted damage. Video games simply rate the durability of a character in the same way you might rate the durability of wood or metal. People who grew up with video games, in particular, could be forgiven for viewing real fighting through this lens.
So let’s rate Ali’s chin in the way a video game might:
That’s a big punch, right? Certainly. Bigger than anything Liston or Foreman threw? Not a chance. Is it possible the punches that decked Ali were truly the only solid punches ever landed clean on his sweet spot?
It is.
So using simple video game logic, Ali’s chin really isn’t all that strong. If the only three solid punches ever landed clean were able to drop him.
But Ali was “caught unaware.” It had nothing to do with how much damage his chin could absorb and everything to do with his awareness of the incoming punch.
“The glass jaw kept ‘em from bein’ great!”
Ali’s style was built on elusiveness. He almost never tasted the full impact of anyone’s punches. We don’t have to know how tough his chin was because it didn’t really matter.
Before running into George Foreman, many regarded Joe Frazier as having an “iron chin.” Frazier was no Mike Tyson in terms of head movement, but he did try to catch punches on his arms, shoulders, and forehead, rather than his jaw. At full speed, it often appeared Frazier was absorbing three punches to land one of his own. Against Ali this was true, but against slower opponents the punches usually failed to connect with Smokin’ Joe’s jaw.
Ali was too fast for Frazier to worry about defending all of his punches. So Frazier made a calculated decision to disregard the slapping swats of Ali, to instead focus on throwing real punches at Ali. Frazier proved over 41 rounds that he could stay conscious despite anything Ali threw at him.
Enter George Foreman, by many counts the hardest puncher in the history of boxing. Foreman was so strong that he was able to simply plant his feet and bore uppercuts through Frazier’s guard. The same defense that had shielded Frazier from uppercuts in the past was no match for Foreman’s power. Frazier, who had rarely been visibly hurt in his career to this point [1], was dropped eight times by George Foreman over two fights.
Frazier’s legacy has not been tarnished by these performances, partially because Foreman did similar work against anyone who tried to absorb his punch. But a casual fan could easily be confused into thinking less of Frazier.
This is the hurt business, in which trained fighters try their damndest to hurt each other, and sometimes people get hurt.
I recently observed a discussion in which Thomas Hearns was described as having a glass jaw. Apparently a KO loss to Marvelous Marvin Hagler in “The War” erases Hearns’ durable showings (such as the rematch with Iran Barkley in 1992). Here is where my patience for casual boxing fans runs dry. This is the hurt business, in which trained fighters try their damndest to hurt each other, and sometimes people get hurt. There is no shame in Hearns’ loss to Hagler, and it certainly does not make him a “glass jaw” fighter.
Lennox Lewis is often referred to as a glass jaw. I loved Lennox Lewis, and any experienced boxing observer can tell you what caused his losses: lack of focus. The man traded heavy artillery with Ray Mercer, Tommy Morrison, Shannon Briggs, and many more before losing interest against Hasim Rahman (he was also “caught cold” by Oliver McCall).
Fighters like Hearns and Lewis were great. It doesn’t take a perfect record, or a career without being knocked down, to be one of the greatest fighters who ever lived. What works for Floyd Mayweather, Jr. doesn’t have to work for Rocky Marciano or Joe Frazier. Each is their own unique fighter, and that’s what makes boxing great. Contrasting styles make interesting fights.
The Broken Jaw Theory
I seem to be a curse upon my chosen fighters, because my current favorite in MMA, Alistair Overeem, loses focus and consciousness repeatedly.
In the case of Overeem, some fans fear we are observing an extreme glass jaw in the making.
After surviving many MMA wars, Wanderlei Silva’s jaw appears as solid as a Faberge egg, and Chuck Liddell’s career had a similar arc... According to the rants of fans on message boards (which you can google at your leisure- there are tons).
It makes sense that at some point the human jaw, or brain, is no longer able to heal and return to pristine condition. This could give each opponent a head-start to KO-ing a well-worn fighter.
In addition to the medical science, my father and other veteran fight fans would make a different point entirely:
“Any man over 200 pounds can knock out any man on the planet.”
-Gregory A. Phillips
That isn’t to say that it’s easy — but the probability of a knockout goes up when you have more weight behind the punches. No one who finished Alistair Overeem, Wanderlei Silva, Chuck Liddell, or anyone else I’ve mentioned in this article, were “cream puffs” in any sense.
Alistair Overeem has been stopped by the punches and kicks of men who weigh close to 265 pounds! A jaw made of concrete would split in half under the same conditions [2].
The Iron Chin
Then there are those who seem to have an iron jaw. Both Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali displayed great toughness for the bulk of their careers— but they are clearly not of the George Foreman or Vitali Klitschko mold.
Does a science yet exist to tell us how “Big George” was able to absorb Ron Lyle’s best punch as if it were made of Nerf foam?
I believe that Lewis’ uppercuts were eventually going to stop Vitali Klitschko, but we’ll never know…
The fight was mercifully stopped due to cuts. Lewis was awarded a TKO victory. Klitschko won the award for “best battle-damaged Terminator costume”. Despite losing nearly half of the flesh on his face to Lewis’ right hands, Klitschko was awake and still “game” for more.
Compared to guys like these, everyone is a Glass Joe.
You don’t want to know
The best way to take a punch is not to take it at all. Most of the haters tossing around the glass jaw label are already masters of this best defense, avoiding physical challenges from the safety of their keyboards. It’s easy for the recliner-critics to live in ignorant bliss when they will never participate in an elite boxing match.
Let’s poke a hole in that ignorance with a little wisdom from the professional elite:
When you get hit that’s when you’ve got to be calm. A professional fighter has to learn how to hit and not get hit, and at the same time be exciting. That’s what professional boxing is about. You’ve got to be clever, you’ve got to be smart, and not get hit, and when you’re able to do this, you’re a fighter.
– Cus D’Amato [3] (mentor of “Iron” Mike Tyson)
You don’t want to know how tough your chin is. In the case of Ali, especially, his attempts to avoid the punches are likely the real reason why we thought he had an iron chin in the first place. The punches never really landed hard enough for us to know, and thus it never mattered.
Critics using the glass jaw label are suffering from a similar problem to the fighters they victimize with it. A fighter is knocked out by lack of awareness. You call world class fighters “glass jaw” out of your own ignorance.
Footnotes:
- Before meeting George Foreman, Joe Frazier was dropped twice in a bout with hard-punching Oscar Bonavena. Frazier recovered well and won the 1966 fight, as well their later rematch. Bonavena was a noted puncher who retired with 44 KOs, and decision victories over George Chuvalo and Zora Folley.
- John Rennie deconstructs concrete and wood breaking in martial arts.
- More quotes from Cus D’Amato.
Bonus Points:
