Billy Fox - Jake La Motta fight

No question Jake went in the water, OF. I knew him too well from the gym and the street. He broke alotta hearts in the Bronx that night.

Every neighborhood guy put everything he could beg, borrow or steal on his nose.

 

Of course Palermo told Fox that his bout against LaMotta was on the level, do you really believe that he would tell him the truth about what happened in the most important of his career up to that point? None of the other fixed fights that Fox participated in were against as high a profile or well known opponent as LaMotta either, so Palermo had every reason to make Fox believe that the fight was on the level as the last thing he needed after the shitstorm that the fight created was a disgruntled fighter who he still had intentions of using up before kicking him to the curb. But who am I kidding, if Blinky were alive and he himself would come out and admit that the fight was a fix and that it was all his doing I`m almost certain you wouldn`t buy it either... anything to discredit LaMotta as a man or fighter when talking about him with you.

 

JG, how was LaMotta treated in the Bronx neighborhood after that? It seems he would be kinda ashamed to show his face(?)

 

So you are saying that if your brother kidnaps and murders a child and you have knowledge of the crime, you do not have to testify. How many children would he have to murder before you think you should be compelled to testify. Law and order is in the general interest of society. The idea that family members can protect each other's criminal activities doesn't strike me as all that great an idea.

By the way, you do not testify against your brother. You testify to the truth.

 

needless to say, I dont doubt you John.

 

If an underage girl is raped and the ****** gets away because of a technicality and the father then avenges her, what charge does the DA bring? Will a jury of his peers actually convict him of much of anything. I doubt it regardless of what the DA wants to do. Ultimately, the jury has the last word.

As far as crossing the street against a red light, I would certainly testify against my children. The law concerning not crossing against a red light was put in to protect them and other members of society. If I saw my boy break that rule, I would not shield him. Let him pay the fine and learn to obey the law. It is in his own best interest to do so.

This discussion seems far afield from boxing and should be pursued in the lounge, I think.

 

I think the point here is that you're not supposed to be able to prove a fix. If there was undeniable proof, Jake could be accused of being even a worse actor than he was. Yet if you asked one hundred people, who have either an eyewitness account (John Garfield as well as the reporters cited on this thread who were also at ringside that night), or you have seen the fight on film, or have heard the story from fathers or grandfathers, could be as many as ninety-nine would bet big money that Jake tanked, if it could ever be proved sufficiently to collect. It's like alot of things in American culture; you've heard them so many times and there is so much circumstantial evidence to that effect, that if you were ever to find out otherwise, you'd next expect to drive off the edge of the Earth! I do commend you Senya, for your resiliency and ability to frame an issue; and if you're not a trial lawyer you may have to reconsider your career choice, but how incredulous would you be if I told you that Elvis Presley's drug of choice was prescription drugs, or that the American Presidential election of 1960 was fixed by JFK's old man (an ex-bootlegger/racketeer who'd done a lot of business with Sam Giancana in his prior, darker life and who was so determined to see a Kennedy in the White House that he convinced another social climber (Frank Sinatra) to act as go-between with the boys from Chicago to ensure the Union vote came in for the Democrats, whatever it was going to take; or that Frankie Carbo and the Italian mob in New York, had such a stranglehold on boxing in those days that once a fighter was in the rarified territory of contender, he'd either dance to their tune, or risk fading into obscurity, or my favorite, that the ex and most prominent head of our FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, was a cross-dressing homosexual, and that the same Italian mob lured him to a hotel room in New York, the bait, a young and lithe masculine body, and filmed the entire ordeal that ensued from a camera hidden in the closet, and that that is the only reason why Mr. Hoover, to his last days, denied the existence of a Mafia in the country of his jurisdiction?

 

how was it " pure Bull**** "

 

How could you show proof?
Any proof that Liston dived?
Before this goes any further ,lets be frank, you think the fight was legit, so this thread is agenda driven.
It is not an objective search for the truth.
Three night before the fight Lamotta had a meeting with Palermo ,and Carbo at the Lastarza v McCarthy fight.,Joey Lamotta and Bill Daley were also present.

"In the fourth round, when I stopped the fight , it was one sided from the start.
Fox rushed Lamotta all over the ring throwing both left and right hooks to the body and head,without any return from Lamotta." Referee Frank Fulham.
"If there was anybody in the Garden who didn't know what was happening, he must have been dead drunk"
Extract from Fulham's autobiography.
The odds shifted from 6-5 .pickem to 11-5 Fox, just prior to the fight.three hours before the fight, Fox had shortened to 3-1 on, they then stopped taking money.

The fight was on the 14th of Nov.There as a New York State Athletic Commision inquiry on the 17th of Nov.
Among those testifying were Fulham,Joey Lamotta,Al Silvani, and Palermo.

As a result of stonewalling by the witnesses,the DA got involved.
Palermo ,and Carbo were interviewed by him, and Lamotta was interviewed by the assistant D A.
The word was Lamotta was initially supposed to fight Lesnevich, as a return favour for tanking against Fox, instead Fox got the shot lasting just 1 rd and Jake had to wait for Cerdan.

After the initial investigation , Lamotta was barred from boxing in New York for 7 months , and had $1000 deducted from his $20,000 purse as a fine.