As fight fans the word over know, boxing great Jake LaMotta passed away this week at the long-lived age of 95. Tributes have been pouring in from all over, deservedly so, and most celebratory pieces written in dedication to “The Bronx Bull” go into great detail about Jake’s great chin, his unimaginably tough and durable chin.
Truly a phenomenon, LaMotta, who retired from the ring with an astonishing 83-19-4(30) record in April of 1954, outlived his famous ring rivals by a considerable amount of time. The sublime Sugar Ray Robinson has been gone for well over thirty years, Frenchman Laurent Dauthuille, against whom Jake scored that flabbergasting, come-from-behind, last 13-seconds of the 15th-round KO, passed away back in 1971. Tony Janiro, the good looking kid Jake busted up (as immortalized in the classic movie starring Robert De Niro (“well, he ain’t good looking no more”) left us in 1985. And the list goes on.
