Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta were not lovers...

...as the video below will attest, the last three rounds of the fight known as the Valentine's Day Massacre, February 14th, 1951. It's just inconceivable the amount of punishment that Lamotta takes in these rounds, and it's a shame too, because the beating he withstood in those nine minutes led history to deem this fight a massacre, when in fact he gave a lot more than he got for at least the first eight rounds of the fight. Certainly, if you've never seen this entire bout, you should do so - it runs regularly on Classic.

Sugar Ray is merciless once he smells blood, whipping those jack-knife bolos off LaMotta's defenseless head three and four at a time. The beginning of the end occurs with a vicious flurry about two minutes into the eleventh. In the space of ten seconds, the bull goes from hunter to hunted, and the matador reaches for the sword. The bout could have been stopped in the 11th, most definitely should have been stopped in the 12th, and by the 13th, well, it feels like we're witnessing capital punishment.

Excepting LaMotta's infamous dive job to Billy Fox in 1947, this was the first time in his career that he was stopped. It's not hard to see why.