Robinson, 29, played the part of the matador to LaMotta's Bronx Bull, but after eight rounds two of the judges had LaMotta ahead. Knowing this, Robinson's strategy was to make the champion work in the early rounds and then take advantage as he tired. It did not spook LaMotta, who was his aggressive self on fight night, but he did struggle to make the weight for his third defence - he was six pounds over the limit the day before. When they met to sign contracts for the fight, Robinson tried to psyche out his rival by drinking a glass of blood drained from a beef steak. Jake La Motta takes a stinging right from Sugar Ray Robinson in the third round. LaMotta's world middleweight title, which he won from Frenchman Marcel Cerdan in June 1949, was on the line and he was still the only man to have beaten Robinson.
Robinson got revenge just 21 days later and in 1946 was crowned world welterweight champion.īut it was at middleweight that they met for the sixth and final time. In their second fight in 1943, Robinson lost on points for his first defeat following 40 professional wins.
They fought six times over nine years and it pitched contrasting styles against each other: LaMotta, known as the Bronx Bull, was a rugged brawler while Robinson was a slick boxing genius based in Harlem. "If the referee had held up another 30 more seconds, Sugar Ray would have collapsed from hitting me," said LaMotta.
LaMotta, now 94, has retold his version of events over and over, but the punchlines have never gone flat. The pair's most famous fight ended when Robinson stopped LaMotta in a punishing 13th round to win the undisputed world middleweight title. It is one of the most famous fights in boxing history and LaMotta is still alive today to tell the tale. "I fought Sugar Ray so often I almost got diabetes," Jake LaMotta has often joked and the most painful of those six fights was at Chicago Stadium on St. Jake LaMotta was Sugar Ray Robinson's bloody Valentine 65 years ago in a savage world middleweight title fight.
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