Jake Lammotas win over Bob Satterfield~

Many guys who were highly ranked for years never got title shots like Burley, Williams, Bivins, etc. If the champion didn't want to fight someone they generally could get away with it unless there was massive public demand for the fight. I don't see how LaMotta going years without a title shot is in any way proof that the mob stood in his way.

 

Yes they are talking about his purse. Essentially LaMotta had to pay a bribe of almost $100,000 to get his title shot AFTER taking a dive against Fox and then gave up his purse initially to Cerdan but it was later shown that Cerdan never received a dime of either his money or LaMotta's. During the Kefauver hearings Cerdan's check was produced showing he had endorsed it over to Lew Burston who cashed it. Lew Burston was Cerdan's mob front manager. That money went back into the mob coffers.

 

"Steve Belloise"

Was in the navy I believe, but still managed to fight Holman Williams during a furlough.

"Kid Tunero"

Fought 11 fights in the USA between 5-12-1941 and 1-5-1945. He won six of them. His biggest wins were Mose Brown in Baltimore (2-2-1942) and a decision over Ezzard Charles in Cincinnati (5-13-1942). He lost three times in the US to Holman Williams, but beat Williams in Havana (7-31-1943)

My point about welterweights isn't a moral one. I think it difficult to know from the perspective of the 21st century how hard it was to get around during the war, but I do notice that Holman Williams managed to fight on the west coast, in the east, and even in Havana during the war. My issue with LaMotta is he came up during the war when among others Zale, Abrams, Belloise, Apostoli, Hostak, etc. were in the military. 15 million men out of a total population of 130 million. That has to have a tremendous negative impact. My question with LaMotta is one I would raise with the baseball pitcher Dizzy Trout. Between 1943 and 1945 Trout won 65 games, reaching 27 in 1944. He pitched in the major leagues from 1939 to 1952. The rest of his career he was a losing pitcher. It is a valid point that winning 65 games against the depleted competition of 1943 to 1945 is not the same as would have been winning 65 games from 1936 to 1938 or 1948 to 1950.

I have no moral issues with fighting welterweights. I just think it valid to note how many there were compared to other middleweight champions over the years, like Zale or Olson or Fullmer, or guys like Yarosz or Steele whom I haven't studied on this issue. And also for that matter contenders. LaMotta ended up with many more fights in which he has 10 or more lb. weight pulls than the others I have looked at. And Robinson is the opponent in only 3 of the 11 fights listed.

As for Burley, are you saying that Burley refused fights with LaMotta? He somehow got fights with Williams and Charles.

As for fighting black fighters, it is a good point to bring up in his favor,

but how does he compare to other middleweight champions, like Teddy Yarosz, for example, who one rarely sees on a ATG middles ratings list:

Yarosz beat--Sammy Slaughter, Oscar Rankins, Archie Moore, Al Gainer, Nate Bolden, Jimmy Reeves, Lloyd Marshall

Yarosz lost--Ezzard Charles, Jimmy Bivins, Turkey Thompson

I think comparing Yarosz to LaMotta, especially common opponents Bolden, Reeves, and Marshall, puts LaMotta in perspective.

 

"HE PAID FOR HIS TITLE SHOT"

"He paid by throwing the fight to Fox which got Fox a title shot, won them a lot of money from the gambling on that fight, paid them a substantial bribe in addition to that, and also gave up his purse and while he wasn't owned by the mob he did have to have to sign a promotional contract with the IBC which had partnered with the mob for his next three title defenses."

What evidence is there that LaMotta himself didn't bet on Fox in that fight? You say he had a lot of money. Why wouldn't he put big bets down (through an intermediary of course) on the fighter he knew was going to win? Scruples? LOL

"Belloise, Dauthille, and Lytell couldn't have come up with the same money"

That says it all.

"Graziano"

Here are the NBA ratings of April 5, 1949, the last one before LaMotta gets his shot at Cerdan.

Champion--Marcel Cerdan
1--Tony Zale
2--Steve Belloise
3--Bert Lytell
4--Cyrille Delannoit
5--Lurent Dauthuille
6--Rocky Graziano
7--Jake LaMotta
8--Robert Villemain
9--Dave Sands

You are on both sides of the fence here. Should the title shot go to the guy who is most highly rated? Or should it go to the guy who can bring in the biggest gate? The latter is most likely off all evidence Graziano. But I don't think he should have gotten the shot. Belloise or Lytell should have, or Delannoit or Dauthuille.

"LaMotta was slipping"

Lamotta wasn't even 27 years old yet in early 1949 when he lost to Dauthuille and got a very questionable decision over Villemain. If, as you yourself are claiming, the mob is going to make all this much money on LaMotta fighting for the title, that Villemain decision becomes even more smelly. Personally, I don't think LaMotta was slipping. I just think he was never as good as his supporters maintain. It is strange that we are expected to give slack to the 26 year old LaMotta for slipping but not to the 33 year old Cerdan.

"Robinson"

"It was LaMotta winning the title that convinced him to make a run at it"

This rings true. The flip side is why didn't he go for the title earlier? The implication is he (or his management) wasn't that confident about the results against top middles after the Levine and Abrams struggles.

 

Do you really want to compare Jake LaMotta, who is said on this thread to have owned an arena and to have paid $100,000 for a shot at the title,

to Joe Gans in 1901 America?

 

Exactly, he had one fight of note during this period while on furlough. How is this different from what I said. My point stands.

You are being intentionally deceptive with this comment to suit your argument. Nine of the eleven fights you mention happened when LaMotta was either in his first year as a pro or just past it and Tunero had basically left the USA just as LaMotta started breaking into contention. So criticizing LaMotta for not fighting a foreign fighter who was only hear for a very brief time while LaMotta would have reasonably been able to fight him is really stretching and really illustrates just how weak the argument is. Tunero only returned to the USA for two months at the end of 1944 beginning of 1945 a time during which LaMotta was signed to fight Robinson and did. So should LaMotta have forgone fighting a bigger name, who was more dangerous, for more money or should he have forgotten about the Robinson to fight to face a little known foreigner simply to say later on that he defeated a MW instead of a WW so some guy 70 years later wouldnt be able to hold it against him? Come on. Thats ridiculous. As someone above said, how do you twist your brain into knots to pretend that Tunero would have been a more dangerous opponent than Robinson??? Tunero could make the WW limit as well and Tunero had lost at that weight the year earlier to a guy who was 10-1. Does anyone ANYONE regard Tunero in anywhere near the same light as Robinson?? No. Im one of the only people alive who has seen Tunero fight and in that fight he was getting his head knocked off a decade earlier so I dont think I'll be holding it against LaMotta that he fought a much more highly regarded, much more dangerous fighter instead of Tunero which is besides the point that literally no promoter in the United States was calling for a LaMotta-Tunero fight and literally nobody else was either.

Just because Williams had to travel to make money doesnt mean LaMotta did. Robinson didnt cross the Mississippi until after the war and didnt fight in California until 1947, seven years into his career. Why? Because he didnt have to. He could make as much or more fighting in the East where the big money was. Graziano never once fought west of the Mississippi. Fighters followed the money, they didnt just decide to up and relocate to a place where nobody had ever seen them fight and re-establish themselves. Do you think Archie Moore would have been such a gypsy if he could have made money and gotten a title shot fighting in St. Louis? Of course he wouldnt.

But a good historian knows you dont compare different fighters and different eras without comparing the context in which their careers unfolded. Comparing LaMotta trying to make money during the war with Bobo Olson fighting in era where the sport was booming or Gene Fullmer is ridiculous.

Im saying Burley created 90% of his problems in regards to getting big fights. You consider Charles and Williams big fights today because of the high regard those two are held in today. Thats hindsight. At the time those were not big fights.

This is exactly what Im talking about. You pluck names out of hat as if just those names are supposed to mean something and many of those names werent considered anything then or now, as if they were these all time greats. Oscar Rankins? Who had failed to win his last 4 fights when Yarosz fought him and who had lost almost half of his fights?? Cross comparing their common opponents Bolden, Reeves, and Marshall? Ok, lets do that. Reeves had only ten fights when Yarosz fought him, had never faced anyone of note, and had only been ten rounds once. Yarosz had 120 fights when he fought Reeves. When LaMotta fought Reeves Reeves was 16-3 at the time and had been in against Yarosz, Christoforidis, and Kreiger. LaMotta was 14-0-1 at the time and had never been beyond 6 rounds. When Yarosz fought Nate Bolden Bolden was 18-5-2. His only win of note was against Zale and thats only important in hindsight as Zale wouldnt emerge in the public eye until his upset win over Hostak a year later. Yarosz had 116 fights at this point. When LaMotta fought Bolden Bolden was 32-12-3. LaMotta 16-2-1. When Yarosz fought Marshall Marshall was 19-4-1. He had defeated Overlin who had won just one of his last five fights and had just returned from Australia and Babe Risko who was totally shot by this point and would retire afterwards but had lost to Ceferino Garcia twice. All good fights for experience but Marshall was still developing. In fact the reason Marshall was able to defeat Yarosz was because Yarosz was on his honeymoon in California, hadnt trained, and just picked up that fight for money. When they rematched Yarosz dropped and beat the still developing Marshall. When LaMotta faced Marshall Marshall was 46-10-3 and in his prime having beaten Charles, Burley, Christoforidis, and Bolden within the past year and would go on within months to beat Maxim, Williams, and Chase. LaMotta was 43-7-2 and also in his prime.

So in every instance the far more experienced Yarosz was fighting a neophyte who would later gain much more valuable experience and with the exception of Marshall would be facing a less experienced LaMotta who was not yet in his prime. In Marshalls case he was squarely a LHW when he fought LaMotta at catchweights. Yes he had to make weight but there no doubt he was the bigger fighter. So trying to pretend that there was parity in all of these fights is ridiculous and really hammers home why the context is so much more important than simply plucking names out of a hat.

 

See this really exposes your agenda. What does this have to do with the argument that LaMotta was not mob controlled and had to pay through the nose with his reputation and wallet to get a title shot. This is just a snide petty comment to run LaMotta down and has no baring on the discussion. Ive never said LaMotta was some paragon of virtue. Thats a straw man argument you people are putting up because you dont have the facts on your side to support the argument that LaMotta was mob owned.

It does. The mob was involved in the sport to make money. They were picking the bones of anyone they could. Im not sure what agreeing with me does for your argument.

You dont have to inform me of the ratings. Im more familiar than you are with them. I didnt need to wait until Boxrec started posting them to know who was rated where. LOL. So to be clear, its your argument that a guy who featured in three of the last four MW title fights, losing two, the last of which he lost a complete blowout, and hadnt fought since then, a year earlier, and never had beaten a top ten rated MW to get his title shot deserved ANOTHER title shot and that the public would have supported it. I just want to be clear on that. Because thats your argument.

Who said anything about Cerdan?? Again your agenda is exposed here. On one hand youll argue that LaMotta was looking bad in all of these fights but on the other hand he wasnt slipping. The fact is that the press thought LaMotta was slipping, his supporters thought he was slipping, and both his wife (who divorced him after abuse) and his estranged brother decades later, neither of whom had any reason to protect him or lie about his condition, stated that he stopped training like he had previously and simply wasnt the same fighter. Its not hard to find reports from people who knew LaMotta intimately and/or followed his career to say that he wasnt the same fighter. Again, its all about context, not just what you glean from boxrec.

Im not sure what you think one has to do with the other. You said "they could have easily picked robinson, etc." to defend against vis a vis Cerdan. I explained why your argument, once again, had no basis given the context of the time.

 

Thank you.

 

He was a well known mob front man. Being a boxing guy and a mob front wasnt mutually exclusive, in fact the vast majority of front managers were dyed in the wool boxing guys. The conclusion drawn by the Kefauver commission was that Burston cashed the check (this isnt in dispute as he admitted it, he couldnt have done otherwise because he signed it and they had witnesses that he cashed it) and either pocketed the money or more likely turned it over or split it with the mob. Burstons story was, as you say, that he gave the cash to Cerdan but this made no sense to anyone and drew guffaws because it was established in the timeline that Cerdan had already left by the time Burston cashed the check. Now we could pretend that Burston cashed the check and pocketed the money and the buck stopped there but lets be real. Burston a well known front manager and the link between Cerdan and the mob somehow finds himself in possession of the check, cashes it, and what? Just keeps it for himself and Cerdan is ok with that? Decides to hand on to all of that cash until Cerdan returns? Please. Theres only one reason Cerdan is ok with that check being cashed by Burston and leaving the cash with him. Because he knew he wasnt getting it back and if he knew that and was ok with it and had no legal recourse why do you suppose that is? Think of every boxer youve ever heard about. You ever hear of a boxer just ok with leaving his biggest purse behind? Particularly in a situation where every nickel from that promotion flowed uphill to the mob? Burston was shown to be a pretty slimy and unreliable character in his testimony and more than once he was boxed into a corner and had no real answer to get himself free.

LaMotta-Cerdan was the IBC's first major promotion and they worked hand in hand with the mob to make it possible. Between that and the Charles-Walcott fight held a week later the IBC was in the process of clamping down promotional dates, venues, television contracts, and via the mob, fighters. So this fight showed the mob just how much money was to be made off the sport and generated more than anyone off it, more even than the IBC which was actually hurt financially on the promotional end of things. It was clear from the Kefauver transcripts, witness testimony, and evidence submitted that Kefauver commission had a pretty good idea of what went down. There was also grand jury testimony by witnesses in the Kefauver hearings submitted into evidence that made it clear that some people (LaMotta included, changed their later testimony out of fear). For instance, in LaMotta's grand jury testimony he was much more detailed and named names which corroborated other evidence given in those hearings and independently corroborated later by people who could not have known what was testified behind closed doors. When he got before the commission, as much as LaMotta spilled his guts he suddenly got very severe memory loss in regards to specifics about the people who were involved. It was very clear LaMotta was willing to take the heat but he was very careful to contain any blowback that might effect any mob figures and result in him being hurt or killed. He was asked if he was threatened and/or scared into limiting his details and this angered LaMotta. He shot back "I aint scared of none of them rats." or something to that effect, but he clearly was. When you compare his grand jury testimony to his Kefauver testimony there are big gaps in the Kefauver testimony that are filled by the grand jury testimony and you can piece together what happened and get a larger sense of what the mob was trying to accomplish and how they were worming their into the sport from many different angles in order to lock it down. Burston was just a small piece of the puzzle.

 

Youd have to be giving Burston a lot of undue credit to believe this and clearly it wasnt what investigators believed. You literally have to create out of whole cloth a convoluted scenario in which Burston was being magnanimous (something he wasnt) or you can believe the more likely scenario given what we already know about how this played out. The mob was literally robbing everyone in this scenario but somehow they and Burston found it in their hearts to protect Cerdan and his estate four months before he died unexpectedly. Why? Why the soft spot for Cerdan. He was already under their power and they controlled him promotionally in the USA, the only place he could win a title and make any money worth having at a point when his career was winding down. You could believe that Burston and the mob were looking out for him but I dont and nobody close to the investigation believed it either given Burston's lack of credibility and inability to sufficiently explain away multiple facets of this instance. Furthermore, Burston was a mob manager because he was beholden to them. Not the other way around. If the mob wasnt benefitting from his association with these fighters then they would have simply eschewed him and gotten one of their other managers to handle Cerdan. Thats how things had worked, particularly in New York, for decades.

 

The mafia and their influence in boxing was a massive criminal conspiracy. It encompassed several congressional hearings and a massive anti-trust lawsuit. Its not convoluted at all to suggest they stole Cerdan's money and controlled him. They literally did this all of the time. The stories of mob fighters complaining they received nothing for this fight or that are legion. Im not sure why you are trying to conflate the Kefauver hearings and the McCarthy hearings. They were two separate hearings trying to accomplish two separate things headed by two separate committees years apart. One has nothing to do with the other. The Kefauver hearings into the mobs ties to boxing uncovered a ton of evidence and led to the conviction of several underworld figures and were the final nail in the coffin of the IBC which had essentially been broken up the year before. Pretending the Kefauver hearings were akin to the witch hunt that the McCarthy hearings were is frankly bizarre given everything that was uncovered by the Senate sub committee on organized crimes influence in the sport. I think you have a rudimentary knowledge of how our taxes work here in the states if you think that simply cashing Cerdan's check for him allowed Burston or Cerdan to dodge tax liability. That liability would have been figured by the government based on the IBC filings which were well known well before Burston cashed the check because Cerdan was paid on a percentage basis. He earned 40% of the gate. The IBC could potentially have falsified the gate receipts to reflect the loss they claimed but beyond shorting Cerdan based on false gate numbers and shrinking his purse and by extension his tax liability marginally he would have still owed based on the recorded figures we have. So the idea that they had some comically inept scheme to avoid taxes based on Burston, not Cerdan cashing the check doesnt jive. Cerdan's tax liability doesnt change in that scenario. No more than Louis' tax liability changed because he gave his purses for Simon and Baer over to charity. That was Cerdan's name on the contract, Cerdan's name on the check, Cerdan who performed those services, and Cerdan whose tax liability that resided with. In fact, paying that money to Burston would have not only left Cerdan with his tax liability but then it would have created a tax liability for Burston as well. The government is going to get theirs regardless, so why would Burston take that liability on himself out of the kindness of his own heart. He was in this business to make money (and he was a greedy *******). But, again, to believe all of that youd have to believe their motivation was a tax dodge which wouldnt have even worked and nobody who has any basic understanding of the tax system would have tried. "Here, cash my check so I dont have to pay taxes..." Its comical.