The Vikki LaMotta Story: Jake, Raging Bull, Playboy, Sinatra and The Mob

The gearBoxingReviewThe descent of boxing legend Jake 'Raging Bull' LaMotta leaves Ricky Hatton's fall from grace in the shade

Ricky Hatton used to talk about the "red mist" that descended on him sometimes in the ring. It cost him his two biggest fights – against Floyd Mayweather Jnr and Manny Pacquiao – and, away from the ring, he suffered from a similar impulse, an irresistible urge to "go for it".

Yet two weeks in rehab, the loss of his licence and a £20,000 fine do not seem to have convinced the Hitman he has a problem with drink or drugs, even though he clearly has issues adjusting to life after boxing. Fighters can be like that. As soon as they stop believing they're some version of superman, it's all or nothing – often nothing. No athlete carries the psychic baggage boxers are lumbered with. It comes in many forms and the crime sheet is long.

While Hatton has done nothing more than fall prey to human idiocy and put his trust in a friend who ran to the newspapers with an incriminating video, he may benefit from reading about another vulnerable member of his calling whose urges were far more destructive and sinister. The British edition of Thomas Hauser's ghosted autobiography of Vikki LaMotta is just out and it shines fresh light on the man in whose shadow she walked, her husband of 11 years, the Raging Bull.

Vikki, who died five years ago, aged 75, once asked Jake, after taking yet another beating from him: "Why did you do it? What possible reason could you have had for hurting me so badly?"

He said: "I did it because I loved you. I thought it would frighten you into coming back to me. Besides, I get hurt all the time. It doesn't mean anything."

LaMotta made no distinction between himself and his wife. Pain was incidental, mundane almost. He was also a prisoner of drink. Vikki relates how he would keep a diary in his waning days as a fighter: "Alcohol seems to stay in your system and doesn't want to come out"; "Drank too much and got sick"; "Ate bad and drank bad"; "Black Friday, drank all day"; "Ate bad, drank bad, gained eight pounds in one day".

The 89-year-old LaMotta now lives in New York and, for the price of a good suit, he will reheat these anecdotes. If it were not for Jake, we would not have heard of Vikki, of course. But, were it not for Martin Scorsese's evocative 1980 movie, Jake's story would have rotted in the vault with a thousand others. Instead, they have all found fame with each other.

Hatton is hardly a raging bull. He is a good-natured and decent man. But he has demons of his own still to fight, just like Jake and all the others.

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