Poll: How good was Primo Carnera?

No vote?

 

World level didn't even exist in his era considering that large parts of the world were separated from professional boxing.

 

"He had nothing" Joe Louis lol

 

From Joe Louis that is not even that damning. I keep telling you this. Joe Louis was so far ahead against most of these guys, the fight went so perfectly for him, that it wasn't even that rude to say he had an easy time. From him, compared to his fights it is not ev n a put down. Who had "anything" when Louis was controlling a fight? If you put what he says about most of his opponents-from the same book in fights that went his way,,it's not even that bad what he says about Carnera.

Joe Louis on max Baer "he came out of his corner like he was scared to death" "the only time he hit me hard was at the end of the second round. He'd hit me with two rights to the head, but they didn't hurt. He couldn't hit as hard as I thought he could " "for a while I think he tried to throw the fight. He just wasn't right. I don't know what happened to him that night. I felt he wasn't the fighter I thought he should have been"


Joe Louis on Carnera- "he couldn't punch, but he had a pretty decent Jab. He pushed with his right and he was awkward. Mostly he tried to scare me with his weight. It was hard to get under his guard at first, but chappie told me to pace myself and the openings would come". "(Because)he never hurt me once, I felt ready for any heavyweight in the world - jimmy Braddock, Max Baer, anybody."


Joe Louis on jimmy Braddock - "I could have finished him anytime after the first round" . Chappie kept saying "wait, take it easy, he knows a lot, he will come apart after five rounds, I'll tell you when to shoot"

 

That's not true. European boxing was huge. The worlds best participated at world level.

 

How come these guys don't vote on Carnera?? There's a hundred pols out there. They come on and discredit Primo but don't vote. Surely there must be an option for them somewhere from all these polls?

 

You are telling me nothing, all you are doing is posting a comment by Max Schmeling ad nauseum ,a comment that is faint praise at best. What Louis said about Braddock or Baer has absolutely nothing to do with is comments on Carnera whom he clearly did not rate at all! Neither did Gene Tunney.

What you want to do is cherry pick your comments ,choosing any that are even slightly positive ,[and that's all they are! ]And ignoring the negative ones . And let's face it they couldn't get much more negative than
He had a weak chin, couldn't punch, his defence came apart under pressure,he's in trouble with anyone who has any kind of a punch !Jes*s that's as damning as it gets!

How stupid do you actually think the rest of us are?

 

Gorilla vs. Man

'Any animal can be knocked out by a hard punch'


by Gene Tunney



June 9, 1938

It was one of the first fights I had ever had. It was in France during the war. I was to box a big sergeant who outweighed me considerably and who had much more experience. Just before the gong sounded a second in my corner said, 'Stay away from this fellow. Be careful, he's as strong as a gorilla.'

In the second round I hit him in the solar plexus with a left hook and he very obligingly went down and out. It was not a particularly hard punch. I went back to my corner and said, 'If gorillas aren't any stronger than that get a match for me with one.'

I was a great admirer of the late Arthur Brisbane. I admired him tremendously as a man, as an editor, and of course greatly as a reporter. It was he who on the eve of an important championship heavyweight fight once wrote a bit contemptuously, 'A gorilla could lick them both.' The line was widely quoted and Brisbane often used it. More than once he wrote editorials for the Sunday American on the theme and the editorials were accompanied by Windsor McKay drawings showing an enormous gorilla crushing a man with a casual sweep of his right arm.

Eventually fighting became my trade. I was interested in every phase of boxing and of human anatomy. I learned early that a boxer to be successful must know a great deal more than how to land a punch. He must know where to land it so that it will have the most effect. He must know his own body and he must strengthen parts of his body which were never meant to absorb punches -- the solar plexus region for instance. Out of sheer curiosity I often talked over Brisbane's statement with medical men who knew anatomy and with explorers and wild animal men who knew gorillas.

I happened to be seated alongside of him at the 1932 Democratic convention in Chicago. One day Frank Buck walked up to us and I said to Frank, 'You know something about gorillas. Do you think that a well-trained, well-conditioned prize-fighter could knock out a gorilla?' This was meant as a sort of kid, for I knew that Mr. Brisbane, in spite of his great intellectual capacity, had no understanding of humor.

Buck said, 'I certainly do. I don't think he'd have any trouble.'

'How about it, Mr. Brisbane?' I asked, but Mr. Brisbane only shook his head. He said, rather emphatically, after Frank Buck departed, 'Tunney, don't let that fellow fool you, a gorilla could lick three men.' He wasn't going to give up a conviction which he had held for many years. Mr. Brisbane went to his death convinced that a gorilla could lick any man who ever lived.

I asked the late Martin Johnson about it and he thoroughly agreed with Buck and myself.

'A gorilla is a sluggish thinker,' Martin Johnson said. 'He only knows one attack. He goes after something and grabs it with his hands and then hugs it to his breast, crushing the life out of it when possible.'

* * *

It is my firm conviction that any fairly good heavyweight boxer could put the great Gargantua to sleep or to rout within two minutes. You must remember that a boxer stepping into the ring to defend or seek a championship is, muscularly speaking, quite a different person than is the spectator who watches him. Years of specialized calisthenics have put a tough layer of hard muscle over the boxer's stomach and solar plexus. Punches that would knock the ordinary man out instantly or injure him internally, bounce off the hardened body of a well conditioned boxer without making him gasp. That protective layer of muscle absorbs punches just as shock absorbers on your car assimilate the bumps.

And speaking of unprotected solar plexuses, I can remember seeing in the American Vaudeville Theatre at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue some years ago a washed-up middleweight fighter named Mike Farrell from the Westside Athletic Club put the gloves on with a trained polar bear at the invitation of the trainer from the stage. The bear had been used to sticking out one of its gloved fore-paws and scaring the silly men who would accept the invitation to box with the bear as a lark. Mike Farrell had an Irish sense of humor. When the bear stuck out his paw, Mike simply slipped inside and with both hands played the most resounding rat-a-tat on the unsuspecting bear's midsection. The bear dropped on all fours and ran off the stage, letting out the most terrifying shrieks. The trainer tried to brain Mike with a chair, the only weapon he could reach, for trying to kill his breadwinner.

Gargantua is a big boy but a Dempsey left hook landing on his stomach might figuratively tear the poor animal in two and leave him paralyzed on the canvas or jungle. He didn't spend years of doing bending and mat exercises. A man has twenty-four ribs. Your encyclopedia will tell you that a gorilla has but thirteen. Between the ribs, below the breastbone, there are nerve centers. If they are shocked the shock travels to the spine temporarily causing paralysis. The ribs and well developed muscles between the ribs protect these nerve centers. Twenty-four ribs are much more protection than thirteen.

There is the question of Gargantua's enormous teeth which look so frightening. He could do a lot of damage with his teeth and he doesn't know it. To begin with he lives on a vegetable diet. He isn't a meat eater. He is herbivorous and therefore would hardly relish a bite of tough human muscle. Anyone who lives only on what the dietitians call soft food must have weak teeth. They haven't been hardened to tearing meat. A good right-hand punch would probably send eight of Gargantua's teeth flying out to the seventh row.

A gorilla has a skull which closely resembles the skull of a man. However, encased in that skull is a small brain, smaller than that of a dog. A gorilla has no reasoning process worthy of the name. Suppose he was fighting Joe Louis. What would he make of that amazing fast left jab? It would bewilder him considerably. It has bewildered every human opponent (except Max Schmeling) Louis has ever fought. A gorilla doesn't know pain, they say. Suppose Louis or Schmeling or any of the first ten ranking heavyweights were to land a punch let's say on Gargantua's Adam's Apple. Then Gargantua would know pain. Were you ever hit on the Adam's Apple? It isn't fun. Jack Dempsey hit me there when we boxed in Philadelphia and I felt as though I were swallowing whole pineapples for a week after. Martin Johnson told me a well-placed punch on the jaw would down the average large gorilla.

As soon as Gargantua felt pain his reaction would be to rush in furiously. A good fighter would side step, swing a right to the jaw and Gargantua would be hearing the birdies sing. Any animal who has a brain, a nervous system and a spinal cord, can be knocked out.

Now the Ringling Brothers Circus has come to our part of the country. It has pitched its tents at Bridgeport. Gargantua, the great star of the show, is there. Humphrey Doulens, one of our contributors, and a most ardent devotee of the circus, will also be there. He offers to arrange an opportunity for me to test out my theory: That a well-conditioned fighter could lick any gorilla. But unfortunately I am no longer in fighting shape. However, I would like to take up the offer for any one of a dozen third-rate heavyweights I know, but I would have to insist on immunity from any legal action by Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey for damages through injury to Gargantua the Great. Moreover, I would insist on a referee other than Humphrey Doulens or any other Bridgeport buddy of Gargantua's to prevent the possibility of a long count.

 

The rest of the minority you mean.

You are so sure Primo was such a poor boxer that you won't even vote!

Tunney and Louis were talking about specific losing efforts. They were not casting opinion on Carneras over all career. When ever a fighter from that era gives an opinion on Primos whole career they are clear in pointing out primo really was a champion, not the best champion but a champion. Good enough to do what he did.

Sharkey said he beat Primo easily first time but came unstuck after Primo improved. He really did not say anything negative.

 

His English was as good if not better than Carpentier's, Schmeling's,Cerdan's.31 Foreign born members in the
Old Timers Section.
Including
French
Panamanian
Czech
Australian
Welsh
Scottish
Danish
Japanese
Russian
Irish
Barbadian
Filipino

 

Maybe you could cheap shot a Gorilla, but the thing would need to be chained up and unsuspecting. If a Gorilla wanted to hurt a man I believe he would tear any man to pieces.

 

An easy win for Gorilla.

Tunney was an idiot.

 

Louis and Tunney did!

I'm not interested in the vote, if every member on here voted that Carnera was an all time great fighter it would not change my opinion that he was a, weak chinned, moderately skilled giant ,who lacked a big punch ,and came apart under pressure.