Is Jake LaMotta Underrated ??

I've actually gone back-n-forth through the years on whether LaMotta is underrated or overrated.

On one hand, he has a victory over the arguable GOAT, who wouldn't lose otherwise in his first 130-ish fights, & he also beat another great MW in Cerdan, who's typically rated in or around most people's top 10-15.

However, there are extenuating circumstances surrounding both of these wins - he outweighed Robinson by around 16 lbs when he beat him, which is a huge advantage vs. a WW, & the footage of the Cerdan fight seems to corroborate that he was reduced to fighting almost exclusively one-handed for much of that fight.

But what really bothers me most about LaMotta are some of his losses.

-An aging Zivic, who was never more than a natural WW, beat him once & fought him on competitive terms in other fights.

-Lloyd Marshall sucked down to a 161 lb catchweight & still had enough energy to control LaMotta at long range for most of their fight.

-Villemain outfought him at close quarters not only once, but twice according to many ringsiders.

-Dauthuille beat him once, & could've/should've beaten him a 2nd time for the title if he'd only stayed away from him for the last 3 mins.

At the end of the day, I think LaMotta was a very good fighter who overachieved & perhaps even caught some lucky breaks at key moments of his career.

 

a decade+ ago i would have said he was a bit overrated.

i like the guy, he was what he was.

a world class boxer.

if he isn't viewed as that he's underrated.

 

Honestly Jake LaMotta was great and has become a little underrated a bit like Gene Fullmer and some other guys from that time.

 

Overachieved how so? He was a very clever boxer who was very obviously gifted for violence.

 

As you mentioned about the life and death struggles with the welterweight Zivic, it should also be mentioned that he beat up on a lot of smaller opposition in the welterweight division such as California Jackie Wilson, Tommy Bell, George Costner and Tony Janiro and also lost to a journeyman in Cecil Hudson. After Hudson beat Jake, he lost his next 8 fights so it wasn't a case of Cecil coming aiive and becoming a contender. He was just a journeyman. Jake was tough as nails, but he got a lot of mileage from that movie. I feel he was overrated.

 

He was as tough as they came, and he fought them all, but from what other's have told me, and from what I've read, there were a lot of fights he should have lost. I don't think people underrate or overrate him.

 

^^^ this.

 

A VERY good question! I agree that the film "boosted his stock", so to speak.

If you look at his career from as objective a standpoint as you can I'd say he was somewhat of an overachiever. LaMotta relied a great deal on toughness rather than pure natural talent. (He would NEVER approach someone like Sugar Ray Robinson for natural ability--no question about it!!)

 

You could learn to box watching LaMotta this is a ridiculous way of seeing it. He also very obviously talented how was he not?

 

He lived until he was something like 95 partly due to him being a terrific boxer who caught a lot of punches instead of taking them at full force

 

He has one of the best resumes of all time against welterweights.

Problem being he was a middleweight or over when he fought most of them.

Also very accomplished at wife-beating.

 

rolling and absorbing def is good.

but jake did get hit clean a lot too, he just could take it.

the genetics of brain trauma hasn't been studied well yet.

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this tanaka dude is something else. skip to 3 mins and watch that chair get bent over his head. he did that thousands of times in his wrestling career. he's still completely normal and is a politician in japan. mike awesome killed himself, a lot of people who did that stuff in the 90/2000's are now dead, tanaka's fine, that has to be genetics.