So, time does what Sugar Ray couldn’t
FINAL BELL TOLLS FOR UNPUTDOWNABLE LEGEND RAGING BULL LAMOTTA... AGED 95
THEY say he fought his ill-health to the bitter end but, then again, they all say that. Only in the case of Jake Lamotta, you can take it as one of life and death’s certainties. His fight went the distance, and beyond, but at a time when a charade between two showmen earned the posturing pair about $300million between them, the passing of one of boxing’s toughest-ever warriors has a poignancy to those steeped in the game. Yes, the film helped – Robert De Niro’s portrayal (above) making Raging Bull one of the big screen’s finest sporting works – but everyone with a handle on boxing’s bloodied, brutal, glorious and tragic history, already knew what Lamotta, who has died at the age of 95, symbolised probably more than any other fighter. He symbolised the role of the street-fighter in the sport. He symbolised the savage nobility of never surrendering, the toughness of those who would never give in. That his most famous fight was a defeat was entirely typical. It was his sixth and final meeting with Sugar Ray Robinson, rated by many as the best pound-forpound boxer ever. On February 14, 1951, in Chicago Stadium, Sugar Ray did not just beat Lamotta for a fifth time, he beat him to a pulp. In the 13th round, Lamotta was defenceless, ribs cracked, nose broken, both eyes swollen shut, his face a red mess. Referee Frank Sikora stepped in to stop the slaughter, Lamotta propped himself against the ropes and said: “You never put me down, Ray, you never put me down.” Robinson knocked out 108 men but never had Lamotta on the canvas in those six meetings. Lamotta, of course, was no punchbag. Known as a swarmer and slugger, he earned the nickname Bronx Bull, but could box. Born to Italian parents in the Bronx in 1922, he turned professional at the age of 19, won 83 of his 106 paid contests and became world middleweight champion in 1949. He was the man who inflicted the first defeat on the great Sugar Ray, albeit one avenged many times over. “I fought Sugar Ray so many times, I’m surprised I didn’t get diabetes.” Lamotta would say. “We met so many times, we almost got married.” Had they got married, it would have been eight for Jake, his widow Denise his seventh and final wife in a turbulent life that was told to a worldwide audience by director Martin Scorsese and De Niro. It was a life, away from the ring, that, in truth, probably had not a lot to respect. Links with the mob, selfconfessed shocking treatment of women, criminal assaults in his feral youth. In the ring, though, no one came tougher.