for three to five years lamotta was considered the uncrowned middleweight champ. my question is that if he could have fought for the middleweight championship is who would he have to fight to become champ and how long would he held onto the championship? since he was only champ from yr 49 to yr 51
I don't think 'uncrowned champ' was fair to the other top MWs who were frozen out like Robinson/Burley/Marshall. Lamotta would have probably beat Zale/Graziano though
nobody was frozen out, apart from the actual title! the title was frozen during the war for christ sake!
If Zale's title had not been frozen by WW II, a showdown between he and LaMotta would have been an intriguing proposition. We all know about Jake's chin, but Tony might have by-passed it entirely in favor of his vaunted body attack. How does LaMotta respond to that degree of gut checking over the championship distance? Had Jake succeeded in lifting the middleweight title years earlier than he did, maybe we would have seen Black Murderer's Row contenders getting title shots.
there where many great middles at that time and only one title for them to fight for and that was frozen. So most fought each other and there really wasn’t a dominating middleweight. Perhaps Robinson (who was also welterweight champion) was closest to this but even he lost to LaMotta and had close fights that could have went either way with georgie Abram’s and drew with Henry brim who graziano and Dave sands both pole axed. LaMotta certainly was not unbeaten during any “uncrowned” 5 year winning spree, he even lost the year he won the title and during his reign in a non title fight. LaMotta did beat Bert lytell, loyd marshal and Holman Williams who were members of the black murderers row though.
He lost to Lloyd Marshall by a wide margin actually. And the win over Lytell was split and many felt should have gone to Bert.
woops! I cant belive i wrote that! aparently lamotta had a strong last round as he often did. clearly playing posum backfired that time. I get holman wiliams mixed up with marshall for some reason. I could have added bob satterfield though. the decision stands. as I said lamotta did not have a 5 year winning spree there was a lot of talent out there.
