The story goes....Graziano said "I wouldn't want to fight LaMotta and he wouldn't want to fight me, because of our friendship". And then someone said "Rocky, Jake just said he would and asked where and when?" LaMotta was the superior fighter. Graziano was rather protected and limited. If more modern guys like Terry Norris, Bernard Hopkins, and Jermaine Taylor get knocked for fighting smaller guys, I can imagine what kind of criticism Graziano would get.
They were friends from their crime riden pasts in new york la motta was obviously from the bronx and graziano from the lower east side. They were in the same detension center as teenagers and had as much of a friendship as you could with a man like la motta. I think the reason they didnt fight was just it never happaned la motta said he would of fought him i think la motta would of engadged in a boxing match with his own mother if you payed him. La motta would of one anyway graziano had a punch to defeat most men but la motta wasnt like most men
Graziano's chin wouldn't of held up here. LaMotta's would have. Chin over the power, like it usually goes.
Where's Frankie Carbo fit in to all this? Not really rhetorical, and I will defer to John Garfield on this, as he had a personal relationship with both these guys, but in my second or third hand opinion; Rocky was mobbed up early on, and Jake ended up doing business later in his career, so who would go down in this fight that never happened, on which nose would the boys place their bets, might have been the dilemma. That said, anybody, JG or others on this forum who might have better information I will stand humbly and in fact gratefully corrected. An edit: If these two would have fought legit, I'd have had my bet down on the kid from the Bronx.
I just read 'Raging Bull'. Graziano helped set up Lamotta for a failed breakout attempt from the detention center they both were in as kids. They were definitely friends. I had always heard that Lamotta would've fought and Graziano was the one who didn't want it due to friendship. Lamotta didn't go in to any great detail in the book, but it seemed like as stated above, it was more of a mob control issue. Lamotta wasn't getting knocked out by anybody, so without the one-punch potential, I don't see where Graziano could've had much success with Lamotta.
These two were actually signed to face each other for LaMotta's middleweight title in the summer of 1950 at the Polo Grounds, but because of Graziano breaking his left hand (I believe it was) a couple of weeks before the fight took place, he had to pull out and Tiberio Mitri was brought in as a replacement to face Jake.
Graziano referred to Lamotta as his "policeman" meaning he knocked off all the guys Rocky wanted to give a miss to,paramount among them was Jake himself.Lamotta would be too much for Graziano,imo.
i saw a photo once of lamotta and graziano winking at a signing for the fight. i saw it on the net but cant find it. can someone post it here if they know where to find it.
Graziano and LaMotta were signed to fight in 1950. Graziano didnt believe LaMotta was serious about the fight and when told that LaMotta was in great shape and training hard Graziano walked over and punched a tree breaking his hand to get out of the fight. True story.
