Quote Originally Posted by greynotsoold View Post
While LaMotta certainly did take some serious punches in his career, he was far from a punching bag.
For sure, he was a lot better defensively than people gave him credit for.

The most dangerous thing about Jake was the weight cutting. We know now that weight cutting is dangerous, but they didn't know that back then. And to make it worse, they were doing same day weigh ins, so Lamotta was cutting INSANE weight without going through a 24 hour hydration period, so he was taking a lot of these punches with a severely depleted layer of cerebral spinal fluid protecting his brain.

Wilfredo Benitez ended up with disabling dementia from getting hit, and he was one of the best defensive fighters ever and had half the fights Lamotta had. Something in the genes, some guys are just built to take it and some guys aren't.