Jake LaMotta was known as "The Bronx Bull" before becoming the middleweight champion of the world during his heyday as a boxer in the 1940s. He then enjoyed a public resurgence as a nightclub entertainer and the object of the highly acclaimed film Raging Bull in later decades. From deprived family circumstances, LaMotta endured a challenging early life, turned to crime and then learned to box in prison before taking up the sport for a living. His was a tumultuous life in and out of the ring. LaMotta ran afoul of gangsters who wished to run his career and was forced to fix a match-the ultimate boxing no-no-in order to obtain a long-delayed title shot. He fulfilled his long-held ambition to wear the crown emblematic of the best 160-pound fighter in the world, but he is almost as well known for his battles with Sugar Ray Robinson. Regarded by many boxing observers as the finest pound-for-pound fighter in history, Robinson met LaMotta six times in the ring. Robinson won five of those fights, but he could never knock LaMotta off his feet, a source of great pride to the New Yorker.

LaMotta was popular with fight fans because he never took a step backwards; his heart and guts were always on display in the ring. Yet his prickly personality, stubbornness, and arrogance also made enemies and led to his seven marriages. LaMotta was 95 when he died in 2017. Book jacket.