SHOULDN'T have been world champions.

It's a bit like being the tallest midget.

 

More like winning a gold medal in the special olympics...

 

You might be right about LaMotta winning the rematch if Cerdan didn't die in the Azores in 1949. I never knew of LaMotta's injury in the first fight
with his hands...I saw LaMotta fight one time in Eastern Pkwy Arena, and
he wasn't too impressive that night, against a journeyman fighter...
But I have no doubt LaMotta's resume was much better than Cerdans...
He is a TOUGH ******* for certain....

 

Allen told me about a fight of LaMotta's he saw in detroit against dick wagner (I think). He said that throughout the entire fight LaMotta barely threw a single punch to the guys head. Then in one of the later rounds the guy starts bleeding around the mouth and no one could figure out what it was from because LaMotta hadnt been throwing to the head. Suddenly the guy starts spitting blood all over the place and the fight had to be stopped. LaMotta had beat this guy to the body so bad that he was hemorraging internally.

 

Klompton, In haven't heard Dick Wagners name in decades..I used to see himtrain at Stillmans gym in the late 1940s...He was a tough light heavy
journeyman from the Northwest as I recall...

 

Well, as Surf-Bat remarked, the scores in the Cerdan-Raadick fight were WIDE in favour of Cerdan. To me, that largely off-sets the trouble he endured in the 10th round. All fighters have troublesome moments. Ali, Holmes, Louis, Robinson, Holyfield - everyone.

That's a valid opinion, and it might be right, but still just an opinion.

LaMotta was definitely piling on the pressure.

Immediate reports of the fight mostly agree that Cerdan was barely attempting to use his left from the second round onwards. Film of the fight backs this up - Cerdan is throwing right hand leads over and over again and occasionally a token poke with the left.
Film also shows Cerdan being thrown judo-style to the canvas in the first round, where the injury almost certainly occured.

I think Cerdan battled back bravely.
What evidence did Allen Rosenfeld provide to give his doubt any credence whatsoever ?

Yeah, and so do 90% of fighters, including champions and greats.
Injuries in boxing, esp. to the hands, do happen though.

Valid points, but he didn't struggle with everyone he faced.
SRR and LaMotta struggled with less famous middleweights around this time too.
And Cerdan looked sensational destroying Zale.
Zale was past his best but had actually looked awesome three month earlier when he blasted Graziano out in their rubber match.

No, the difference is probably a real medical difference between LaMotta's injury and Cerdan's.

Cerdan didn't just quit. He fought with an obvious injury for 9 rounds against a raging bull of a fighter. Cerdan was fighting through the pain, just as LaMotta was. But I guess he was left defenseless, and LaMotta was just too good an opponent to be fighting like that.

Cerdan couldn't beat LaMotta with one arm. And maybe he couldn't beat him with two.
But it's wrong to bleat on about him making excuses when he clearly DID suffer an injury, and he clearly did make a fine effort to fight through it.

 

I always thought Michael Moorer was lucky to be heavyweight champion.
Holyfield seemed to be fighting injured in that fight in 1994, and looked terrible but I thought he did enough to get at least a draw. So Moorer was double fortunate really.

 

great answer. Not that I thought of it , but after reading it it fits 100%.

 

This was my guess , Holyfield had a heart problem . Didn't he get a heart attack during that fight ? which is why I am relatively uninterested in it.