What's your pick on this one 'Rocky Graziano vs. Jake LaMotta'

I came up with it from the men that were ranked at middleweight the same time Graziano was,men he did not face.
Cochrane was a welter weight never ranked at middleweight he conceded 10lbs in both fights with Graziano
Fusari was a welterweight never ranked at middleweight,he conceded 12lbs to Graziano.
Servo was a welterweight never ranked at middleweight,he conceded
7 1/2lbs to Graziano.
Janiro was a welter who was ranked briefly at no 10 as a middle, he gave Graziano 5 1/4lbs
Arnold was a welterweight never ranked at middleweight,he conceded 3lbs twice and6 lbs in their other fight
Green was a welterweight never ranked at middleweight, he conceded 5 3/4lbs

 

I named 16 men that were ranked when Graziano was,men that he did not face. Lamotta fought 8 of them,several of them multiple times.
In addition he fought:
Middleweights
Marshall
Bolden
Kochan x3
Costner
Cerdan
Satterfield
Yarosz
Mitri
Woods
Mitri

Nobody said Graziano was shaking in his boots to fight anyone.

The fact is he did not fight Jake,Jake wanted the fight and he believed ,rightly or wrongly that Graziano did not want to fight him.
Lamotta said ,in his book Graziano's nick name for him was "policeman",because Jake fought men that Graziano would rather give a miss to.

 

Of 16 guys you listed who Graziano didn’t fight, Jake fought half. So that means he didn’t fight the other half, so I still don’t get your point there.

@Mike Cannon, to whom I responded, said that some people suggested Rocky was scared to fight LaMotta. I don’t believe that to be true. So someone did say it.

As for the list of welters, you’re mostly right although Janiro (who you concede was ranked) only made welter like one time after 1946. He was a smallish middleweight, but he was fighting at middleweight. Graziano himself usually came in comfortably below 160 more often than not.

And Jake often outweighed guys by 10 pounds, give or take, sometimes quite a bit more. If we’re going to dismiss his wins where he weighed 5 pounds or more than his opponent, you’d use a few bottles of whiteout going through his record.

I agree Jake had a better resume at middle and would likely defeat Graziano.

I don’t think Rocky was scared to fight LaMotta and I do think he fought his share of good fighters. I’d have to guess the injury cited was legit given he missed five months of that year and fought frequently the rest of the year.

 

My point is those good middleweights you named, and many others were NOT mIddleweights.
Servo was 144 1/2lbs.
Arnold was149 3/4lbs.
Green was147,149lbs and 150 3/4lbs.
Davis was146lbs.
Fusari was147 1/2lbs.
Cochrane was145lbs and142 3/4lbs.

Yes Lamotta fought half of them, you said he didn't fight many,half is acceptable imo.
Graziano fought none of them, nor did he fight the folllowing middles that Lamotta did.
Kochan
Bolden
Marshall
Costner
Woods
Satterfield
Mitri
Yarosz
Cerdan
In fact his record against middleweights is **** poor.

Here are some other guys Rocky fought.
Davey
Greco
Johnson
Reno
Pitiro
Claus
Burton
Curcio
Riggio
Stewart
Miller
Kapilow
Enzenga
All welterweights and listed as such on Box Rec .
I said Graziano wanted no part of Lamotta and I stand by it ,and that was Jake's opinion too.
That does not mean he was physically scared of him,it indicates he didn't fancy his chances of beating him.

You more than most here should know boxing is a business and ,that boxers and their management make business decisions accordingly based on that principle/
Zale for example by passed higher ranked and more deserving challengers to defend against Graziano,he realised he wasn't the same fighter he had been before WW2 and was sensibly creating a pension plan in his last few fights .
Graziano was a big draw ,an exciting ,extremely hard punching sensation whose boxing ability was only rudimentary and who ,apart from a wild, thunderous right hand and plenty of heart, had little else.
A safer proposition for Zale than Lamotta and Burley and a more financially viable one.
From a business point of view Zale made the right decision ,the trilogy with Rocky set him up financially and,when Cerdan beat the remnants of his talent ,Zale going out like the Champ he was,at least he had some $$$,and the paying public got to see 3 great fights.
You evidently think I'm an apologist for Lamotta , so I'll tell this story,which you may not have heard.
Some years ago Chuck Wepner organised a fundraiser for some charity, Lamotta was one of the paid to appear boxing celebs there. When Jake had left the proceedings and gone to his accommodation it was discovered that a sum of charity money had gone missing at the same time as his departure.Wepner went to Jake's digs,knocked on the door and went in, Jake was sitting on the bed with the money in front of him,he looked up at Wepner and said ,"you owe me $1000 for today".Wepner replied,"give me the money of I'll break your legs."Lamotta said," I'll give you a cheque," Chuck said I want the cash,Jake replied," I'm not going to fight you you're too big ,"and handed over the money.So no ,Jake was no saint, nor even a nice guy,but he was twice the middleweight Graziano was and that is generally recognized,Jake featuring on quite a few top ten 160lbs lists ,nobody with any boxing knowledge would put Graziano on such a list,though he might well make it for one punch power.
ps Wepner also said Graziano was a cheap skate. Hard to square with the donation of his purse after a fight.
I think I proved my point about Graziano,and the rest of my rather rambling post was to show I'm not naive about boxing and how it works,nor am I a fan of Lamotta ,the man both of which you implied was the case.

 

lamotta was a lot better and a bit bigger.

 

I'm rather dissapointed Saintpat didn't respond to this.