Senate subcommittee charged with investigating alleged mob influence in boxing, Jake LaMotta testified under oath that he consented to a $100,000 bribe plus a promise that he would be given a crack at the middleweight title in return for losing to Billy Fox.
He had hurt his spleen in sparring and acknowledged that he had taken the fight against the advice of his physician.įlash forward 13 years to June 14, 1960. The commission found no evidence that LaMotta had taken a dive but fined him $1,000 and suspended him for seven months for failing to disclose an injury. The tone of the fight was consistent with the scuttlebutt and with the betting (the late money was all on Fox) and the New York State Athletic Commission held up the purses of LaMotta and Fox pending an investigation. Several pre-fight stories in the tabloid press hinted that the fight wouldn’t be on the up-and-up. His punches, wrote Dawson, were indiscriminate, without accurate direction, but with nothing coming back from LaMotta the referee stepped between them and waived the fight off. Backing LaMotta into a neutral corner, Blackjack Billy flailed away. Jake started fast in round three, but quickly assumed a defensive posture. But LaMotta slowed down in the second round, grimacing as he returned to his corner with his arms at his side.
Dawson, the ringside scribe for the New York Times. Jake won the opening round handily, “battering Fox about the ribs and mid-section with powerful left hooks and vicious right digs at close quarters,” wrote James P. LaMotta’s record was then scarred by 11 losses, but among his prominent white contemporaries only Joey Maxim had been thrust against as many thorny black opponents. Five years older than Fox at age 27, the Bronx Bull was a 78-fight veteran who had tangled with a lot of rough customers including the incomparable Sugar Ray Robinson who he had defeated in their second of what would be six meetings. The case for Jake LaMotta rested largely on his greater experience. LaMotta, who tipped the scale at 167 at the weigh-in, would be giving up seven pounds. The case for Billy Fox, nicknamed Blackjack Billy, rested on two factors: (1) his won-loss record as it appeared in the press and (2) the fact that he was the bigger man. The oddsmakers could not pick a winner and opened the fight “6/5 pick-‘em.” This was a compelling match-up: “LaMotta, the rugged individual from the Bronx who has never been knocked off his feet, and Fox, the flashy Negro from Philadelphia who has starched 49 out of 50 opponents in his meteoric career,” wrote the correspondent for the Associated Press who told his readers the 10-round contest would be “violent and spectacular.” The main event pitted Jake LaMotta against Billy Fox. 14, 1947, a near-capacity crowd of 18,340 crammed into Madison Square Garden for the weekly boxing show.
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