Gene Fullmer vs. Jake LaMotta: Prime for Prime

LaMotta picks Fullmer apart on the inside. Shorter, sharper punches. Jake put them together in combination better as a well.

LaMotta by Dec.


In Utah Fullmer gets a gift.

 

Good call, your right. Saw those fights too. I don't think LaMotta ko's Fulmer. He might take a UD, maybe?

 

That draw seems very suspect indeed. Fullmer does seem to get a little more credit than he deserves when going into this "boxing" mode. Which frankly, didn't look all that impress when viewing it. Maybe it worked functionally, but I was never like, oh wow, this is what Fullmer looks like boxing!!

 

Fullmer.. Fullmer doesn't need to try an outbox LaMotta. He out fights him to a decision. Better conditioned stronger. He has Jake on the back foot all night IMO

 

Great call Robert..., I agree!

 

I’ve watched Tiger on film a bit over the last year or so and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stronger fighter at that weight. He’s like a tank.

 

Fullmer was a glorified regional fighter who was served up a lot of home cooking. LaMotta was a top end world class elite with excellent physical attributes and skill set. I see a fairly lopsided decision even if they fought 3 times.

 

Thanks RC
No denying LaMottas greatness but I see Fullmer as a bad match up for him instead of the other way around.

 

For all of Fullmers supposed physical strength he ran like a thief from not only Dick Tiger but also the smaller, natural Basilio, fought life and death battles with Robinson, also naturally smaller and past his prime, Gil Turner a natural middleweight, and Fernandez who was fighting as a lightweight when he was almost 23 years old. When faced with legitimate middleweights and not feasting on the home cooking he repeatedly got out west Fullmers supposed superhuman strength was less than legendary. Its one thing to beat up on ex weltwerweights (and not always win). Its entirely another to fight a guy like LaMotta who actually fought at light heavyweight as an amateur and pro and had rated light heavies like the hard hitting Bob Murphy breaking ground. LaMottas problems generally stemmed from having to find a clever guy, not going head to head. Particularly when you consider that Fullmer was neither a hard puncher, nor (despite protestations to the contrary here) very clever. They didnt call LaMotta “the one man riot squad” or the “Bronx Bull” because he was weak and lacked stamina, lol. Again, I dont see Fullmer engaging LaMotta. For all his tough guy rep Fullmer was kind of a punk who would rather spoil a fight by mauling and hope the judges mistook fouls for scoring blows. If he couldnt get a guy on the inside he ran and tried to awkwardly leap in with his pawing jabs and occasional hooks and overhand haymakers. I think either game suits Jake. On the inside hed tear Fullmers guts to pieces and out tough him. Like Giardello, hed match Fullmer elbow for elbow and butt for butt. Fullmer would then go outside but Jakes straigher, more accurate jab would time him coming in a lot easier than he did when he outjabbed Robinson in 1951 after being dead from weight draining and when he closed the distance and hed be raking those ribs. I think Fullmer would turn kitten and hope for the best from friendly officials and be dissappointed. A prime Lamotta was a lot different fighter than what you see after Vikki ruined his legs.

 

Not a fan, eh?

 

"glorified regional fighter"

Fullmer fought 17 fights east of the Mississippi, and five fights in California. Those fights are a long ways from his home. The USA is a continental nation and so just saying the fights were "out west" doesn't mean they were anywhere near Fullmer's home town.

Here are some distances compared to European and other distances

Salt Lake City to Los Angeles (688 miles)
London to Berlin (688 miles)

Salt Lake City to San Francisco (736 miles)
New York to Detroit (615 miles)

Salt Lake City to Las Vegas (421 miles)
London to Cologne (376 miles)

Salt Lake City to Denver (521 miles)
London to Paris (296 miles)

Salt Lake City to San Antonio (1308 miles)
London to Warsaw (1022 miles)
London to Rome (1168 miles)

Obviously, fights in these cities are not exactly in Fullmer's back yard. And one would be hard pressed in the US to find two cities more unlike in culture than San Francisco and Salt Lake City, or for that matter the Hispanic San Antonio with Salt Lake City, or wide open Las Vegas with Salt Lake City.

Some of the criticisms made on this thread against Fullmer make sense, but he won his titles in fights in New York and San Francisco, and most of his fights on the way up were east of the Mississippi. He had nothing like the home cooking of Paul Pender, for example.

I think the "regional" criticism is very weak.

 

I'm all too well aware of the distances between locations in the west of the US. However, there are not great populations between those points and the cultural diversity and leaning, even in western California, were not so extreme at that time as they are now. Just outside of San Fran in the 1950's was not the liberal bastion it has become, for instance.

By my rough estimate Gene went 41-1-3 fighting West of the Mississippi. He wen 14-5-1 when fighting elsewhere.

 

LaMotta by decision. Overall better

 

Well, I moved to San Francisco in the 1960's, and was there for about 40 years. I have also lived in San Antonio and Las Vegas. I have only visited Salt Lake City, but believe me these are very different places and with different cultural attitudes. The Haight-Asbury (about 5 blocks from where I lived for a while) didn't just pop up out of nowhere in the mid-sixties. San Francisco has always been an ultra-sophisticated port city. I remember San Francisco being called "Disneyland for adults" back in the 1960's. No one was going to describe Salt Lake City that way.

As for the east and west of the Mississippi records, I think they are a bit distorted by Fullmer fighting tougher and higher ranked opponents on the whole when he traveled. No real surprise about that. His early fights were in Utah. He seems to have gone 13-4 east of the Mississippi, plus 0-1 in Nigeria.

Rudy Zadell (Pittsburgh)
Jackie LaBua (NYC)
Peter Muller (NYC)
Marcel Assire (NYC)
Paul Pender (NYC)
Gil Turner (NYC) Lost
Bobby Boyd (Chicago) Lost
Eduardo Lausse (NYC) Lost
Rocky Castellani (Cleveland)
Gil Turner (NYC)
Tiger Jones (Cleveland)
Charles Humez (NYC)
Sugar Ray Robinson (NYC)
Sugar Ray Robinson (Chicago) Lost
Tiger Jones (Chicago)
Neal Rivers (NYC)
Wilf Greaves (NYC)

Of this group, I think Zadell, Assire, and LaBua were probably never rated. Muller and Greaves most likely broke into the top ten here or there. The other nine were rated in The Ring annual rankings, usually rather highly. Robinson and Turner both beat Fullmer and lost to him in the east. This leaves the back to back losses to Boyd and Lausse in 1955. But I don't think it really proves much about home cooking. Fullmer pushed his way to the title by winning in the east.

As for home cooking, the home "team" is benefited in all sports. I think the home team wins between 54% and 58% in major league baseball, the NFL, and the NBA. Having the fans cheering you on is an advantage. It probably is so in boxing, also. But I don't think the stats show anything inordinate in Fullmer's case.

 

Great points. LaMotta was as tough and rough as they come. I could see Fullmer going to his plan B pretty early. He's no Basilio though. Just a much bigger man and just as good.