we all know he had trouble making weight as a middleweight so my question is if he fought as a lightheavy would he have become champion of the lightheavy title and who would be in his way?
I think Freddie Mills would have been dead meat, but he turned out to be nothing more than a transitional champion anyway. I'm not sure about Jake getting past Maxim, when Murphy couldn't do it. Joey was naturally much bigger, and played on even terms with some of the best heavyweights of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Gus Lesnevich was the man through most of Jake's prime years. The fact is that LaMotta campaigned as a middleweight during this time, suggesting that perhaps he himself figured Lesnevich was beyond him. Like Maxim, Gus was playing with top heavyweights, in his case, Bivins (L UD10), Nathan Mann (W 10), and particularly his favorite whipping boy Mauriello, who he went 4-0 against, and stopped the final time. At the critical moment, Jake tried stepping up against Murphy in his attempt to rebound from the Valentine's Day Massacre, and Irish Bob stopped him in seven. By the time of their rematch it no longer mattered, the window had closed. Moore might have killed him.
LaMotta had weight problems as a middleweight all his career..He would suffer to get down to 160 lbs for a good reason...At 160 Jake was tops ,but if he ventured into the comfortable weight of a light heavyweight. he would have no chance with the top Lightheavy weights.. Jake knew this ,and stayed a middleweight because he was successful with the middleweight fighters,even if he had to struggle to make 160lbs.
Thanks for the feedback, Burt. He certainly doesn't look huge as an amateur light heavyweight. Reports of the match with Tony Janiro are interesting. He was about to turn 26 (meaning his body should have reached full physical maturation by then), came in at a contracted weight below 155 pounds for the only time in his career, yet his performance doesn't seem to have suffered at all from a loss of strength and endurance. Might a lack of discipline have been more of a factor in his weight issues than is commonly cited?
mills was shot when he won the title off lesnevich.he'd lost his best years during the war.at mills' peak he was probably about the same weight as lamotta.it would have been a hell of a fight at 168lb. they would not have had to go looking for one another, lamotta was the better boxer, mills the harder puncher.who wins ??
He wouldn't be particularly impressive at LHW, allot of what made him good were his physical advantages, which disapeared when he moved up, plus he had ever more reach/height disadvantages. He may have been past prime against Nardico and Murphy but I think that showed he would always lose to the top LHWs
Mills was NEVER a 168 pound fighter, Mills merely passed through middleweight as a young lad in the very late 30s, he was being sold to the Yanks as early as 1940 as a potential Heavyweight contender, and actually challenged Joe Louis in 1944 for the Heavyweight title! Freddie Mills was a 13 st. -14 stone fighter ALL of his peak, he was a real Light-Heavyweight come Heavyweight. LaMotta couldn't have done it at Lightheavy, this was all too evident at the many Welterweight come Middleweights that gave him hell. LaMotta a tough nut for sure - Cemment head, but would have been beat by lots of fellow middleweights come light-heavyweights just like he really was. see Lloyd Marshall. the jump from middleweight to proper bigmen was more common in Britain, they had too for survival and income. and the men that really excelled at it, see Len Johnson, Jack Casey, Len Harvey, Jock McAvoy, Bert Gilroy, Randolph Turpin and more yet, these middleweights were a match for any middle in history and LaMotta would have lost more than not to most of them. see Cerdan also, he fought basically one handed for 8 and 1/2 rounds and in the rematch would have been out to settle all questions. another welter come middle. at Light Heavy, Jake as much as I love him wasn't made of the right stuff, men like Lloyd Marshall and some of the others mentioned are better bets!
I believe LaMotta fought at middleweight becuase that's where could get decent money fights. He says so much in In This Corner. Nothing to do with avoiding the likes of Gus Lesnevich.
Mills weighed 172 for his fight against Lesnevich, yes so, it was for the title they were L-HWs they had to come in at or below 175 that's the weight. and he and Gus and most the other L-HWs were dropping in & around 10lbs or more to see it. there was NO such division as 168, the next drop for Mills was an impossible 160 - that he had never seee since his youth in the mid 30s. Mills was every bit a L-HW come HW and he would have thumped LaMotta all night. Now the other British middleweights mentioned, that fought between 160 and 175 regularily would have been better fights for Jake, but not being a big puncher and having more success agaisnt welter come middles, these fighters would also have given Jake too much. the funny thing is they were all the same size LaMotta and this lot, yet these top Brit middles fought well above their weight.
It's still crazy to me that he wanted Louis, when there were roadblocks sufficient to halt his passage much nearer up the bend.
