Why didn’t Jake Lamotta...

And Rocky Graziano, as his weight pulls are also discussed. Here are the weights in his major fights. Rocky's weight always listed first.
Billy Arnold (152-150)
Al Davis (150-146)
Red Cochrane (153-143, 154-145)
Harold Green (153-151)
Marty Servo (152-145)
Tony Zale (154-160, 155-159, 159-159)
Charley Fusari (160-149)
Tony Janiro (160-153, 158-154, 160-155)

And Rocky's losses after he became a name fighter and a contender
Tony Zale (154-160, 159-159)
Sugar Ray Robinson (160-157)
Chuck Davey (158-150)

What stands out is that Graziano was a junior middleweight during his rise to a title shot.

 

It really hard to buy that Graziano would deliberately break a hand just to avoid a LaMotta fight. I think Rocky would almost certainly lose, but he fought Zale and Robinson, more dangerous punchers than Jake, and why would he or anyone else think Robinson was a lesser threat?

It just doesn't make much sense and the source for this tale seems to boil down to Jake and it sure sounds like Jake's ego talking. Jake was a tough guy to lick but not the guy who was most likely to really hurt you with his punching power.

I think all of the middleweights of the 1940's are overrated, by the way. Graziano and LaMotta had that New York thing going for them and both were master publicists, with Hollywood kicking in with biographies. I might be unique in liking Somebody Up There Likes Me more than Raging Bull. Paul Newman was fun to watch and likable. You can see where Stallone got the basics of his Rocky character. The Jake of Raging Bull was just a nasty jerk being a jerk for two hours.

Tony Zale was just coming on when WWII hit and after the war there was the popular trilogy with the spectacular but overrated Graziano and nothing else. Who knows?

 

Jr Middleweight didnt exist, even a concept, at this time. Graziano was a middleweight. He got a shot at the middleweight title by beating welterweights. Thats a fact. Trying to twist it and say "well he was a small middleweight so its ok that he was given a shot ahead of the contenders (twice) without ever having to prove he could actually beat one of them.

In regards to your other post: Fear of losing a fight does not necessarily have to be born out of fear of getting hurt. Jake and Rocky were boyhood friends, neighborhood and divisional rivals, they hung out together, their wives hung out together, they were both macho Italian alpha males. There is a lot of psychology there and Rocky losing to Jake would have a burst a lot of his image particularly in the neighborhood. That being said Sugar Ray Robinson said it best, when you fought Jake conditioning was the name of the game. If you werent in condition Jake would find out. And Graziano hated to train. He literally used to run away from training camp. You dont have to be a hard puncher to put a guy through the ringer. They didnt call Jake the "one man riot squad" for nothing. Nevermind that like Zale Jake was a hellacious body puncher, so the idea that he wasnt feared just because he didnt get stunning knockouts is a little skewed.

 

This line "well he was a small middleweight so it's ok that he was given a shot ahead of the contenders twice without ever proving to prove he could actually beat one of them"

Is not something I posted. That is your spin only. What I actually posted is "I think all the middleweights of the 1940's are overrated."

I just posted the weights for factual information. Graziano was a small middle who got to the top fighting welters or puffed up welters.

LaMotta in the light-heavy class had his wins over smallish light-heavies except for Murphy in 1952, and also for a big middle had a lot of fights with welters holding 10 to 15 lb. weight pulls.

As for the hitting the tree story, it would be nice to have something like evidence for such an unusual event. Who was the person who actually saw this happen? Vicki LaMotta? I don't think so.

"There is a lot of psychology here"

Which is where you go if you don't have facts. Who actually saw the event and testified publicly about it? Without that it is just psychobabble spin in which anything can be believed as plausible.

Jake and "the idea that he wasn't feared"

The record points to Jake not being so feared that welters weren't willing to give up 10 lbs. or more and still fight this big middle several times each.

 

No, you said Graziano was a junior middleweight. He wasnt. The division didnt even exist at the time. It was your way of making an excuse for him. And yes, both guys fought welterweights but what stands out is that LaMotta was fighting the top welterweights. Graziano was not. In facing Zivic, Robinson, Bell, Wilson et al LaMotta was fighting far more threatening opposition than Graziano was at that weight. These guys werent just welterweights, they were pound for pound fighters. Graziano was going life and death with guys like Harold Green (who he supposedly only beat on a mob fix), Billy Arnold (who was a novice that lost his only other fight against a name fighter, to Zivic), Cochrane who hadnt won an important fight in four years, and Servo who sneaked into the big time beating the shopworn Cochrane who was coming off his KO to Graziano and those two guys were never more than blown up lightweights anyway. So theres a reason why people dont hold Jake fighting the toughest guys at WW in the same light as Graziano fighting nobodies and has beens at those weights directly after they were coming off significant layoffs. You can try to pick away at LaMotta fighting LHWs but the fact is that he did. He wasnt just trying to make his name at MW off the backs of old WWs like Graziano. He was rated the number one contender at LHW for a reason. I get it, you want to defend Graziano. Likely because of the Gatti effect, i.e. he was exciting, charismatic, and popular. But the fact remains that his body of work is unimpressive for champion and for a contender in the division he contended in. You can question the circumstances of the hearsay around the events and thats fine but the fact is that people a lot closer to those events than you or I stated those things, Im just repeating them. I dont really care if some nobody on the internet believes it or not. If you want to believe that Jake avoided Graziano so be it but the fact (and I keep bringing up these facts because you seem to think your argument is informed by them) is that Jake was scheduled to fight Graziano in a title fight and it was Rocky, not Jake, who pulled out of it. Thats a fact. It was Rocky, not Jake, who chose never to challenge Jake again after that (and he had the chance), and it was Jake who was drooling over the opportunity to fight Rocky rather than Mitri or Dauthille for both bragging rights and the payday it would have brought. Those are all facts. Rocky was simply a hyped up media creation. His big wins came primarily against small welterweights or has beens and he didnt have many big wins. Most of those he struggled in. Fights against guys like Green and Hudson were supposedly fixed for him to win. Graziano was mob controlled and being helped along in his career by the mob whereas Jake refused to play ball with them, was frozen out, had to take much tougher fights than Rocky and wait years after Rocky to get his deserved title shot despite being higher rated and only got it after being forced to play ball. So no, there is no equivocation between them.

 

klompton2--You are arguing with yourself, as the opinions you ascribe to me aren't my opinions.

"You said Graziano was a junior middleweight. He wasn't."

Okay. I meant in the sense that if you are for example evaluating Jeffries, it is okay to note that Fitz and Choynski were modern super-middleweights or light-heavyweights, although those divisions didn't exist and they were considered heavyweights in that day. I should have said "modern" to avoid confusion with someone who wants to play on confusions. But I think most know what I meant. Graziano wasn't all that impressive, but he didn't have overwhelming size advantages most of the time.

"It is your way of making an excuse for him."

You drew the wrong conclusion. It was my way of pointing out that the big middleweight LaMotta was often doing the same thing, fighting welters. I said twice I think Graziano was overrated. I will make it clear as I can for you. I agree with your take on Graziano. He was a colorful and exciting guy with a likable personality and a big punch which really helped him at the box office and in getting big fights. Cochrane was never much, and Servo had been away for the duration. It is worth noting though that they were the actual champions of the welter division when Graziano KO'd them.

As for LaMotta's welters, obviously the win over Robinson is impressive, even with a 16 lb. weight pull. Bell and Wilson are another matter, two welters who did well during the talent-starved war years but thereafter faded fast. Zivic? He was the one who managed to make the mediocre Cochrane the champion. He seems to have held his own with the bigger LaMotta, even winning one fight. It is worth noting that about the same time he went 0-3 against the lightweights Beau Jack and Bob Montgomery despite being the bigger man.

My take is that all the middles of the 1940's are under a cloud because of the impact of the war on the talent pool, and I find Graziano and LaMotta and Zale all to be historically overrated. Graziano being puffed up doesn't make LaMotta any better.

As for the tree story, a fighter deliberately breaking his hand and thus risking his career and earning ability is really far out there and for me to believe this story requires more than tenuous hearsay.

 

Do you really think you are going to get somewhere in an argument trying to badmouth Zivic,a HOFer and Jackie Wilson an Olympic Silver Medalist with an impressive body of work BEFORE WW2, and Tommy Bell? LOL. Thats the argument somebody who doesnt know what hes talking about would make. Pretending that Wilson and Bell were only top contenders because the war had depleted the ranks is ridiculous. Bell dropped a prime Sugar Ray Robinson and gave him a good fight, lost a split decision to prime Kid Gavilan in a fight that some felt he won and only lost because of a point deduction. You can tout Cochrane and Servo as champions and poo poo Zivic for losing to Cochrane but the fact is that Zivic had already fought 22 rounds the month he lost to Cochrane, Cochrane made it 37 total professional rounds, Zivic faded late from being stale and Cochrane wouldnt give him a return title fight. In a non title return Zivic beat Cochrane easily. Thats the difference between a boxrec warrior and someone who actually knows what they are talking about. I dont need to look at boxrec and try to extrapolate meaningless data as a means of trying to figure out who was better. I also dont need to run down Graziano in order to build up LaMotta. LaMotta's record alone stands head and shoulders both in terms of accomplishments and in terms of the risks he took above Graziano's. In fact I dont think Graziano even needs to be mentioned in the same breath as LaMotta UNLESS someone asks why LaMotta never fought him... You know, the subject of this post. When someone asks that it needs to be pointed out that LaMotta was very eager for a fight with Graziano and that Graziano and his managers both avoided fights with LaMotta BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER he won and lost the title. Thus, the better question isnt why LaMotta didnt fight him but why Graziano didnt fight LaMotta along with a whole host of other threatening fighters at 160 that Graziano almost completely skirted. Simple enough to understand?

 

One thing about LaMotta and that is he really didn't duck anyone .. I have always felt that Zale and Graziano, especially Graziano, were pretty much over rated fighters .. Tony was more legit by far of the two .. their trilogy to me was kind of a Gatti-Ward of the 1940's .. great fights not fights between greats .. LaMotta who is overrated by many and underrated by many would have done a number on both guys ..

 

Your point about Wilson is valid. As for Zivic, I didn't realize that him being a Hall of Famer means it is out of bounds to point out that Zivic was going 0-3 against lightweights Beau Jack and Bob Montgomery at about the same time he was fighting the much bigger LaMotta competitively enough to have four fights, while beating him once.

As for Zivic losing his title to Cochrane, well didn't he? A guy defending the title should make sure he is up to doing his best.

How many times must I post that I agree with your take on Graziano. You are arguing with yourself. Where we truly disagree is about how good LaMotta really was. Yes, he was better than Graziano but that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't also hype in his rep. It is at least an issue worth exploring.

"That's the difference between a boxrec warrior and someone who actually knows what they are talking about."

Okay, if this sort of thing fills a need for you.

For me, boxing history is a trivial issue and thus unlike politics or religion or the like. Something which is fun to debate with no need to become emotionally involved. I know that everyone on this board knows more about many areas of boxing history than I do. It seems to be deadly serious for you, however. Something about being a great expert or even the greatest expert. No fun for some of us in exchanging thoughts with anyone if that is the basis.