“I’ve got too much heart and stamina to be his valentine for 15 laps,” LaMotta snorted ahead of time. Stylistically, everything was clear: Bronx bull LaMotta would charge forward, champion boxer Robinson would prance, counterattack and score from a distance. LaMotta’s pound problem, Robinson’s battle plan Six years later, welterweight king Robinson broke the 147-pound limit and challenged LaMotta, who had captured the 1949 middleweight title with a “dirty” win over legendary Frenchman Marcel Cerdan. But his last victory was so close and controversial that the bill remained open. In 1945 the two met twice again, again Robinson won.

“I’ve fought Sugar Ray so many times, I think I got diabetes,” LaMotta used to joke well into old age. In 1943, the rivals fought each other twice within three weeks: In the first match, LaMotta inflicted the “Sugarman’s” first (and only until the summer of 1951) defeat as a professional, and Robinson won the revenge again.

It was part VI of an epic fistfighting saga that began in 1942 with a Robinson victory. LaMotta: Not just any fight in early 1951. I’ve never seen anyone who was so aggressive and rough.” After the bloody Valentine’s date, Robinson stated: “He’s the toughest guy I’ve ever fought.

“If the referee had let me stand 30 seconds, Sugar Ray would have collapsed from all the hitting,” LaMotta joked afterwards. Some prizefighters can’t do that in a whole fight. Robinson missed his opponent no fewer than 56 shots in that 13th round alone. The woman who fought to box with a headscarf – the story of Zeina NassarĪn old hand at reporter counted in that Wednesday evening Chicago With.

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