Bobo Olson and Jake LaMotta

For reasons already stated I think Burley deserved a nr 1 ranking going into 1947.

Williams was nr 1 contender two years straight and still passed. And don't bring up the Lytell defeat. There were ample time for Zale to make a fight with him before he lost to Lytell.

Both Belloise and Lytell had been ranked ahead of LaMotta for two years straight when Jake got the title shot. That weighs more heavily to me than where LaMotta was ranked five years before that.

That wasn't directed specifically at you or anyone. Just to a sentiment that some around here seem to have. Wasn't thinking about anyone in particular, I think.

"Most of the crowd booed the decision and many ringside experts, including Doc Almy and Eddie Welch, believed that Lytell won handily. The Boston Globe had LaMotta ahead by two points while the Boston Evening American had LaMotta up by a one point. The Boston Herald also favored Lytell 5-4-1 in rounds."

Call it just "controversial" then. If a large part of the audience and ringside experts disagree with a decision it's controversial to me. Doesn't have to mean it was a robbery.

If a fighter secures a title shot through mafia ties, then there are naturally going to be suspicions about other fights he was involved in as well. Villemain apparently got highway robbed against an opponent with mafia ties. How does that not raise some suspicion?

You think it's far fetched that the mafia could have bribed two judges? Judges whose cards were so bad they got suspended? In an era where the mafia controlled much of boxing?


With that said, I don't think it would be wrong in any way if LaMotta got his title shot in 1947 (instead of Graziano getting his second then). I'd say that Lytell's win over Burley earlier that year should have earned him the title shot, but LaMotta definitely was in the running also.

But that's the point where I think LaMotta had the strongest argument to be first in line, and even then I feel Lytell probably had an even stronger argument.

 

....

 

We’ll just have to agree to disagree then. There’s not enough in it to argue over, to be frank.

I disagree. I think any Champion returning from service was entitled to a respite from offering up an immediate defense of their title. Zale wasn’t discharged until around late September/October time, in 1945. He’d been out of the ring for four and a half years. This meant that, realistically, Zale wasn’t going to defend until the summer of ’46.

I think we can get too caught up in the ‘where people were ranked’ arguments. Most of us are using Annual Ring rankings, which do not necessarily tally with NYSAC and NBA quarterly rankings. Moreover, I cannot think of a time when Ring rankings were used to definitively line up challengers for a boxing title, in a specific order. With this in mind, I have seen newspaper reports, form early 1946, referring to Williams as the No.3 Contender.



With regard to Jake LaMotta’s eventual shot at Marcel Cerdan, it is quite likely LaMotta had to pay in multiple ways to get that shot. So, I suppose, the next question is how much does one care about that; especially, in respect to his All-Time Middleweight rating? I’m not really irked by it, in the way others seem to be.

To my mind, of all the guys, who were fighting to maintain a ranking, during the war years, LaMotta was as deserving of a shot as any. As far as his all-time ranking goes, I think he’s got enough there to warrant a place in the Top-20/15. I’d have Williams, Burley and, of course, Robinson ahead of him.

Fair enough.

Again - I’m not convinced LaMotta didn’t deserve the win. Yes, it was a close fight but, controversial? Obviously, “the crowd booed”, so it must have been. But, there’s not enough there for me to get too worried about. Chances are that it was a stinker, with LaMotta pitted against an awkward Southpaw, who spent most of the night on his bike. The bout didn’t live up to the crowd’s expectations.

Nothing to see, here...(probably, quite literally).

It's conceivable, but just because it can be imagined, doesn't mean it's real and/or carries any substance. That's the kind of thinking, upon which rumors, myths and old wives' tales thrive.

That's the main thrust of my argument, but we'll have to disagree on Lytell (and Burley).

Graziano was the fly in the ointment here, in my opinion. But, then again, with the war just over; everyone probably still a little high on VE and VJ day, and with money to be made, Graziano made financial sense. LaMotta was the only other option, at that point in time, as far as I can see. Lytell was the antithesis of both, in terms of the financial case.

 

So is LaMotta's win over Villemain.

 

If you're going to underpin your points with lines like "It is still on record", then you need to apply that support consistently, surely? Your desire to negotiate the definition of what counts as being on record for different circumstances, to suit your argument, is one of the clearest cases of someone using double standards, that I can recall ever seeing on here.

Sorry, but that's credibility-draining stuff, right there...

 

Steve Belloise lost to 4 men whom Lamotta defeated

Belloise was a come forward fighter who would have been made to order for Lamotta

 

I think Williams without a doubt had done enough to be ranked nr 1 before he lost to Lytell. And a fight with Zale could have been scheduled in for the summer before that loss.

It doesn't really effect my ranking of LaMotta whether he jumped the queue or not. I'd have him close to Burley and Williams in the rankings. Hard to conclusively separate those three.

I think all I said about this fight is that large parts of the audience and ringside experts disagreed with the verdict, which makes it controversial in my book. I haven't called it a robbery or any such. But a fight where the outcome is controversial to many of those there to see it, is controversial. That's all.

A rumour or a myth is claiming that something actually did happen. Saying that the probability for something happening likely is larger because something similar has happened before is a different thing.

But this kind of speculation doesn't effect my ranking of LaMotta.

Probably. But that matters little if you think that a champion's duty is to defend the distinction of being hailed as the best in the world against the best challenging for that distinction, not to make as much money as possible.

In other sports you don't get to choose who to defend your titles against based on who get you the most money. I don't think boxing should be different in principle.

 

So was Robert Villemain. An infighting 5' 5 1/2" fighter with no punch - talk about a blueprint for a fighter made to order for Jake. Yet, Villemain had Jake's number. When it comes to boxing, never bet your house.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree again - on both counts.

In which case, we're really on talking about the title shots and their timings, which a thread about LaMotta's rating seems to have morphed into.

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree; this time on what makes a bout's result "controversial", rather than plain old close.

Yes, that is a different thing. It's called a fallacy.

No real arguments from me there.

Our disagreement seems to be on when and against whom Zale should have defended his title during 1946. On that point, I think we know where each of us stand.

 

Of course it isn't.