I hear all the time that the Raging Bull was not really a middleweight. He always had trouble making 160 yet he was also too small for 175. So I wonder, how would he have done against current top 168 lbs fighters of today? Andre Ward Mikkel Kessler Carl Froch Lucian Bute Arthur Abraham
He would have beat them all, none of them can knock him out and none of them i think are really willing to fight him the way you have to fight Lamotta to win, even if they did fight him lets be honest these guys are no sugar rays or anything theyre just great for now, the bar has been lowered because of how boxing is now if you transported all these guys to the era of the 1930's or 40s or you take the best middleweights welterweights whoever you like and put them in with Hagler,Hearns,Duran,Leonard ect would they still really be champions...
Lamotta is thought of as a crude tough slugger by those that are uninformed. Reality was that he was real cute in there.....very aware of distance...always rolling, blocking and slipping blows. None of the middleweights today would be able to handle him.
but the super middles? i see ward taking him wide. against froch, he'd still be much smaller but what a ****ing war!
It probably also had to do something with his style I bet. Hagler wasn't a dynamite hitter either and got a marvelous 78%KO percentage, though he could have reigned a not very strong era (maybe). A chubby past lw went 15 rounds with Hagler but Duran was a different beast all together.
KO% is more a reflection of competition than power in most cases. Fighters who consistently fight a high level of opposition and have a high KO%, are few and far between.
LaMotta was heavier by a considerable margin against a lot of guys he fought, in many cases considerably more (Robinson, of course but also Tommy Bell, Zivic and many others. In these fights he would be the smaller guy and would also give up strength. LaMotta lost to a lot of guys with nowhere near the credentials of these guys. He would lose most or all of these fights.
H, without a doubt LaMotta would be MW champ today, but as a LH he would not be as effective. That is WHY LaMotta started his career as a LH but figured it out that he would be much more effective ,STARVING himself to make the 160 pounds...IN those tougher days after WW2 there were but '8 divisions and if you couldn't make 160 pounds you were deemed a lightheavyweight...Fighters in the 1940s by neccesity knew how to tackle fighters many pounds heavier than they were than today...Would LaMotta beat an Andre Ward at 168 pounds ? 50/50...
he would be smaller than those guys but none of them fight a clinch heavy style. Froch would be close, but power is his weapon and its not worth much v lamotta. imo ward has too much class, handspeed and size for lamotta. he wins the rest though dirrel could make things difficult for a while.