Jake LaMotta was proud of never being knockdown, included a series of fights with Sugar Ray Robinson. A life told in film, Raging Bull by Martin Scorcese & played by Robert DeNiro. LaMotta's last night as a contender came on NYE 1952. Former Marine, Danny Nardico dropped him and won in 7.
New Year’s Eve 1952. Former Middleweight champion and boxing superstar, Jake LaMotta is slumped to the canvas for the first time in his then 103-fight career. Referee Bill Regan, a former Welterweight now broadened by twenty years of retirement, takes up the count. LaMotta, 31 and fighting at a career high of 173 pounds, paws for the bottom rope as Regan looms in.
Opponent Danny Nardico, 27, rushes to a corner, the adrenaline racing through his body. The enormity of what he’d just done with a thunderous cross-cum-hook, the last of a flurry of clubbing shots, writ large before him.
His eyes, and those in the half-light beyond the ropes were focussed on LaMotta, the man who had once beaten Sugar Ray Robinson, but now fumbling to get up, his spatial awareness scrambled by fatigue and the weight of the shots that had put him there.
Regan’s fingers splayed wide, “FIVE, SIX!“. LaMotta’s right glove, short-cuffed and glistening like a ball of hot tar, found the salvation of the rope. “SEVEN, EIGHT!”. Nardico glanced to his corner for reassurance. The laconic, darkened lids of his trainer Bill Gore blinked slowly on a face otherwise expressionless. Gore’s experience with all-time greats like Willie Pep and Joe Brown, and a hundred other pugs, helping him resist the contagion of excitement that had begun to course through the 3,318 who had bought a ticket.
Gore and Nardico turned back to Regan, the drape of his up-turned slacks swaying with the motion of his count; “N-I-I-I-NE!“. LaMotta, as he had stubbornly remained for every other moment of a long professional career, was finally vertical. Standing.
Nardico resumed. Doing what he always did, swinging hard and frequently. His tort, muscular frame appeared to grow, casting an ever greater shadow across the ring. LaMotta shrinking and wilting before him. Nardico is younger, fresher, and the naturally bigger man. He pours on the pressure. LaMotta holds on to the top rope for balance and anchor, a tired ship seeking harbour in the storm.
Regan dances beside them, the Miami crowd cheering on the local slugger. Immersed in his search for the decisive blow. A bloodlust grips, the crowd high on bearing witness to the barbarity of LaMotta's end as a contender, empathy diluted by the Old Fashioneds and Daiquiris already consumed.
Somehow, by instinct, by habit, LaMotta survives the onslaught. He trudges back to his corner, head stooped into the rush of pain and the head wind of a retirement yet to come. Surrounded by those who knew him best, some of whom still cared for the young, old man, and perhaps entirely at his own behest, LaMotta decided to remain on his stool. Regan hovered, dark rings of labour seeping beneath his arms, as LaMotta’s surrender became clear.
The fight was over, whispered into the record books as the last chapter in LaMotta’s career as a contender. Nardico danced to the centre ring, the victor, his cornermen danced with him, their disbelief veiled by a shared euphoria. Gore remained outside the ropes, accounting for the accoutrements of battle as those uncomfortable with the spotlight often do. For Nardico, aged 27, and ranked 5th in the World before this win, had been promised a shot at Archie Moore for the Light-Heavyweight title were he victorious.
Boxing, as LaMotta could attest, isn’t the simplistic business it appears and Nardico never did get to fight The Ole Mongoose. Perhaps fortuitously given the wily champion’s knockout record and Nardico would lose to the lesser Joey Maxim the following March. The momentum Nardico held the night he beat the Bronx Bull was never regained and he retired just four years later, after some inactivity, with a creditable record of 50-13-4. Barely 30 years old. It was a different time.
Despite his frustration of never fighting for the title, Nardico led a fulfilling life beyond boxing and would frequently relay that the horrors of World War II, in which he was awarded two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star at the age of 18, ensured everything else he would face in life, including the once irresistible Jake LaMotta on New Year's Eve 1952, was a “cakewalk“.