LaMotta was only 5'8??

Yea, short reach too. Worked well for him though, always pressuring and working very well on the inside, or better yet, he had to take advantage of what he got.

Jake's pretty known, mostly because of the movie, but he's also underrated as a boxer.
Dude wasn't just raging through, taking every shot to land punishing blows of his own... He was pretty smart and elusive (watch the 2nd fight vs Dauthuille), he had good defensive skills, could block hard hits, had good head-movement, dogding punches or rolling with them, knew how to keep you off-balance, great at cutting off the ring, obviously a beast at bullying his way inside.
He also had great stamina in his prime, big-time endurance and ofc one of the best chins ever.
Never what you'd call a hard hitter while also not having great precision but he had fast hands and could hit, always opening up with a pretty good jab then stepping on the inside landing some hard body blows (best thing for him). That tired the hell out of his opponents, and he used to win many fights by decision due to taking most later rounds.

I mean, altough being over 10 pounds heavier, Bronx Bull was the 1st man to beat Ray Robinson, and even though Sugar beat him 5 times out of 6, most were extremely close fights. You've got plenty of rounds where LaMotta even outjabbed SRR, for example.

Anyways, it's very amazing that Jake's still alive and I think still mentally stable - well, at least within his limits, ya know.
Other guys from those days are long gone, and LaMotta took some ridiculous amounts of punishment. You watch fights like the 'St Valentine's Day Massacre' where at the end, Jake is exhausted and couldn't even keep his hands up, SRR just hitting him with everything but the kitchen sink and Jake just didn't go down :shock: One of those crazy things in human existence.

 

Dwight Qawi was 5'6 and he gave George Foreman a hell of a fight.

 

Past his prime and fighting at light heavy LaMotta got a revenge win against Bob Murphy.
The bull completely outboxed Murphy with guile that he wasn't supposed to have.
He stayed in range all the time but used his jab like a master boxer.
Robinson admitted he'd been out-jabbed by LaMotta when the bull felt like boxing rather than brawling

 

Basilio 5 '.6.5""
Griffith 5'.7.5"
Tiger 5'8"
Fullmer 5'8"
Graziano 5'7"
Zale 5'7.5"

 

Boxers are always shorter than their listed height, they are peobaly measured with street shoes on..

We all shrink when we get older too, I was 5-11 when I was 22, now at 48 I'm 5-9 1/2.

Oh well I guess your as tall as God meant you to be.