LaMotta held the title almost two years before losing it to Robinson in their sixth fight on Feb. The mob did give LaMotta his shot at the title, though, and he made good on it, defeating French-Algerian Marcel Cerdan in 1949 to win the middleweight crown. LaMotta was suspended for several months after the bout and admitted throwing the fight when he testified to a Senate subcommittee investigating boxing corruption in 1960. By that point, LaMotta wrote, “If there was anybody in the Garden who didn’t know what was happening, he must have been dead drunk.” The referee stopped the fight in the fourth round as Fox pounded LaMotta, who was not defending himself. In his autobiography LaMotta said he had trouble making the Fox fight look convincing.

He did, however, agree to throw his 1947 match against Billy Fox in return for a long-sought chance to fight for a championship. Mobsters had a great deal of control over boxing during LaMotta’s career but he refused to take on a Mafia-connected manager. “Punches never bothered me that much,” he once told the Times of London. He had a reputation for having the strongest chin in the sport. LaMotta, who grew up in a rough neighborhood in New York City’s Bronx borough, had a fearless ring style in which he closed in on an opponent, leaning low and forward, and began battering away with little concern about the shots he might take in return.

LaMotta’s seventh wife, Denise Baker, told ABC News that the boxer, who had been living in a nursing home in Miami, died of complications of pneumonia.Īctor Robert DeNiro, who won an Academy Award in 1981 for his movie portrayal of LaMotta, issued a statement saying, “Rest in Peace, Champ.” His daughter Christi LaMotta announced the death on her personal Facebook page but did not disclose the cause of death.

LaMotta, who admitted intentionally losing a fight at the behest of mobsters, was in his 90s, listing his birthday as July 10, 1922, while other sources had the year as 1921. Former middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta poses in New York October 28, 2009.

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