Lamotta boxing8/31/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() LaMotta, who would celebrate his 64th birthday the following month, was in a good mood. A lived-in face like Jake’s is something you don’t forget and his low rumbling growl of a voice was instantly recognisable. Except for a receding hairline and a few extra pounds around the middle, he looked pretty much the same as during his fighting days. He was wearing a striped polo shirt and a wry smile. That version of the “Bronx Bull” was just a memory when he strolled into The Ring magazine’s Manhattan editorial office one summer day in 1985. ![]() Guilt was the catalyst of his intractable fighting style. LaMotta abused women, including his wives, and beat a man so severely during a robbery that he thought he’d killed him, an event that haunted him for years. He spent time in a reformatory for youthful offenders but didn’t reform. The son of an abusive father, Jake LaMotta grew up poor, street smart and wild. His life outside the ring was as turbulent as his fighting style. Nobody had an easy time with LaMotta, not even Sugar Ray Robinson. He wore a leopard-print robe into the ring and when the bell rang he went about his business with reckless belligerence. He had a chunky physique, accentuated by slabs of muscle plastered across his hairy chest and broad back. In his fighting prime Jake LaMotta was an imposing presence. The old scoundrel had outlived them all and now he’s gone. He was one of the last remaining links to another time, a time when Joe Louis was the heavyweight champ and every man wore a hat. Jake LaMotta died on Septemat the age of 95 and shadow boxes no more. It looks like he’s in a dream and perhaps he was, maybe dreaming of past glories, maybe trying to find out if he’s still got it. THERE’S a blurry video that had been popping up on the Internet for months, a bare-chested old man throwing slow-motion punches in a dimly lit room. ![]()
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