“Then I realized I didn’t have to use an ice pick any more. “And when I went after them with an ice pick, they ran away,” he said. After being beaten up at school once, LaMotta told Reuters his abusive father gave him an ice pick to use on his attackers.

LaMotta was a raging bull of a hoodlum as a child. While LaMotta’s strength and volatility made him one of the top fighters of the 1940s and ‘50s, by his own admission, his paranoid, jealous and self-destructive nature led to a life of turmoil. He was never knocked out and in 2002, the authoritative Ring Magazine ranked him 52nd on its list of the 80 best fighters of the previous 80 years. “I fought Sugar so many times, I’m surprised I’m not diabetic,” he said in a line that he would use often.įighting mostly as a middleweight and known as the “Raging Bull” and “Bronx Bull,” LaMotta finished his 13-year career with 83 victories (30 by knockout), 19 losses and four draws. “The three toughest fighters I’ve ever been up against were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson,” LaMotta said. LaMotta’s career was highlighted by a rivalry with the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson, who beat LaMotta in five of their six matches, including an especially ferocious title bout in 1951. “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. MIAMI - Jake LaMotta, the brutish former boxing champion whose life of violence in and out of the ring was portrayed in the movie “Raging Bull,” died Tuesday, according to one of his daughters.

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