Obituary: Raging Bull, Jake LaMotta - the former middleweight boxing champion of the world

Jake LaMotta, who died last month at the age of 95, wasn’t the best middleweight boxer of the late 1940s, though he did hold the world title in that division for two years.

His perennial opponent Sugar Ray Robinson — who eventually fought LaMotta six times — was the acknowledged boxing genius of the time and still features on many shortlists for best pound-for-pound fighter of all time.

Rocky Graziano and Tony Zale, in the same weight class, fought out a series of legendary bouts in the same era. Other divisions featured boxing immortals at the same time — Joe Louis, Ike Williams, Henry Armstrong, and Willie Pep were all active in the era.