Luis "King Kong" Ortiz v. Primo Carnera

Plenty of people who followed his career more closely than me would agree that Carnera was largely an arm puncher. But I understand why old school fanboys like you need to build him into something he wasn't.

 

I didn't call him "a slapper." That was Reznick attributing a false quote to me.

 

I don't have precise definitions for any of these terms but an arm punch as i use the term is basically any punch that relies almost solely on upper body strength, without any force generated from the lower body. I use the term "slap" mainly to describe arm-punched straight punches but "push" is probably more accurate.

 

Ah, I stand corrected. I retract my accusation.

 

If I went back through Carnera's fights, I could find tons of examples of him throwing poorly leveraged punches for no apparent reason. Those punches certainly take their toll, given Carnera's prodigious size, but for the most part they aren't nearly as hard as they look to casuals. Guys like Ortiz, Lennox, or Wlad mostly use arm punches to distract their opponents and to create openings for their real punches.I need to go back and watch more Vitali fights (just realized that it's been a few years) but I always felt that he arm punched excessively too.