What Is Your Opinion About Jake Lamotta? Was He An ATG?

[max baer]

Great two posts bill and willow. I feel, like you guys, that we need to always think of context when we sum up the lives of our forebears because, for example, all my english/irish friends had dads that went to the pub nearly everyday and of the 8 of the lads and girls I knew who had irish parents all our dads worked hard and loved a drink. So I can't say "couldn't they have gone to the health club instead or go online and read about alcoholism etc. They had their own pressures and stresses. My dad was brutalised by his dad who was a religious fanatic and he witnessed murders and accidents at work on building sites as a matter of course.
Men hit women back then and fathers hit their boys. That is just the norm back then.
The fact that you were friends with jake, willow, means you see the vast difference between what media like to portray and what the truth really is.
The one take away I got from reading about him and watching docs and of course Raging Bull was that he was an extremely charismatic man in every way. It seemed he had a great sense of humour about his life too which warms my heart.

[QueensburyRules]

I will go against the consensus here.

I think Raging Bull distorted people's thinking.

He was not a devastaring puncher, he was lucky Cerdan was injured and the film made him into a veritable saint compared to the true monster he really was.

Still so were many fighters (Robinson included).

Top 15 at middle?

Maybe.

Top 10?

Not in my opinion.

- - Product of the teaming, steaming impoverished immigrant streets of New Yawk City at the turn of the 20th Century.

Don't get points in boxing for being Mr Nice Guy though he eventually learned some manners. Jake was no common Mug.

[Anomalocaris]

- - Product of the teaming, steaming impoverished immigrant streets of New Yawk City at the turn of the 20th Century.

Don't get points in boxing for being Mr Nice Guy though he eventually learned some manners. Jake was no common Mug.

There have been some great posts here, yes context has a lot to do with how people turn out.

To be fair I was pissed up when I posted so fair play lads.

[max baer]

There have been some great posts here, yes context has a lot to do with how people turn out.

To be fair I was pissed up when I posted so fair play lads.

Sounds like me too!

This is a photo of his first wife!! what a great looking woman he had!
lamotta-wife.jpg

[MarbleFallsMauler]

- - Product of the teaming, steaming impoverished immigrant streets of New Yawk City at the turn of the 20th Century.

Don't get points in boxing for being Mr Nice Guy though he eventually learned some manners. Jake was no common Mug.

Where he grew up in the Bronx had no relation to the picture you paint of that borough. Lower working class, sure, but clean, full of families and church going people. The Bronx didn't go down the tube's until Robert Moses and the Cross Bronx Expressway divided it and destroyed entire neighborhoods.

And yes, i was born and raised in the Bronx in the 50's.

[Willie Pep 229]

It took 63 rounds for SRR to finally defeat Jake LaMotta. That's a hell of a second place finish, what did this man have to do to prove himself an ATG?

You guys resume everything to death. The man spent seven years, one or two rounds short, of being the best; just unlucky enough to fight along side the guy many of you call the best ever.

Then you say his resume was . . . Eh!

[GhostofDempsey]

If the consensus agrees Robinson is one of the P4P greatest fighters of all time, then what does that say about a fighter who beat him once and arguably twice, and went the distance with him five times and almost six? He also held several wins over the black murderers row of fighters avoided by Robinson…Holman Williams, Burt Lytell, and lost to Lloyd Marshall. Held wins over Satterfield, Cerdan, Zivic, Reeves, Tommy Bell. Yes, Jake is an ATG.

[Willie Pep 229]

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[billeau2]

Where he grew up in the Bronx had no relation to the picture you paint of that borough. Lower working class, sure, but clean, full of families and church going people. The Bronx didn't go down the tube's until Robert Moses and the Cross Bronx Expressway divided it and destroyed entire neighborhoods.

And yes, i was born and raised in the Bronx in the 50's.

People had pride and neighborhoods were protected by residents... But there was still a lot of violence and rough upbringing. I grew up in East Harlem, a generation from you or so (born 64), my dad was Bronx born and raised... Je wish. a lot of middle class Je ws in his generation moved into the Grand Concourse area.

I mean people took care of stuff but I always like this analogy to put things in perspective: When I was a kid, Spanish Harlem was rough and we did things like jump on the back of buses hanging on, or, riding in between the subway cars... Tunney used to go out with friends, hitch a ride on a steamer riding out of the Hudson, and when it got out a bit, dive off the boat and swim back! Sheesh!!

[billeau2]

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Nice quote... Do you know why Ruskies drink Vodka?