I would say his career nor his skills are looked at closely because the stink, real or not, that his bouts were fixed. It's the reason I never bothered to look at Carnera in much detail. What was real vs what was fake? Certainly the man had skills.
Haynes broke a respectable winning streak Primo was having. Right after Louis Primo beat Neusel who was 43-3! Ford Smith, big boy Brackey and Isidro Gastnaga who was considered a dangerous puncher. Between the Max Baer and Joe Louis fights Primo sparked Campolo who had beat Arturo Godoy and the giant Ray Impellitiere. George Foreman got a shot at Moorer coming off a loss and a lay off. Larry Holmes came off a loss and a lay off to fight Tyson. So you can't knock the form of Primo Carnera in his post championship pre kidney failure wins.
I think why Primo is not rated in the top 30 heavyweight punchers has a lot to do with the way Muhammad Ali is not rated as a top thirty puncher even though he also stopped and knocked out many guys too. KO records can be deceiving if the guy scoring all these "knockouts" wore guys down rather than knocking them dead. Ali has more knockouts than ingo Johannson. Nobody rates Ali as the better puncher. So it's not the number of knockouts it is the way the guys get stopped. I think that answers the question.
Johannson had 28 fights , Ali 61 so it's hardly surprising he has more kos! Carnera was never a big puncher,if he could trap a smaller man in a corner he could bludgeon him down, but he wasnt a banger. His ko% is due to two things. 1. Matching him with palooka's who had no ambition other than getting their $$$ 2. Some extracurricular "persuasion" on the part of his management. He couldn't stagger or hurt Loughran who was over 80lbs lighter. Loughran was not hard to deck. 161lbs Jimmy Darcy had him down Tunney floored him Gross floored him twice Levinsky floored him 3 times in2 fights Schaaf floored him Hamas decked him3 times. Sharkey, who has a mediocre 24%ko record stopped Loughran, [he also floored and had Carnera on the verge of a ko at least twice in their first fight]. Yet Carnera ,enjoying the biggest weight differential ,over 84lbs! Up until recent times couldn't even stagger him! If a 32 years old punchless lhvy was conceding 80 lbs to Joshua,Wilder,or Wlad yet went the distance without being floored, or was even in danger of being floored they would be castigated for the rest of their careers! I think that answers the question!
yes Ali had more fights but after 28 fights (by which time he beat Terrell) Ali had 81% Knockout ratio. After the same number of fights ingo had a 61% ko so lets all be really silly and say Ali must have hit a lot harder.. Even by the end of Ali's 61 fight career he had the same Knockout ratio as Ingo and 1% better ratio than Archie Moore who famously knocked out more men than any other champion so let's put KO percentages in the garbage. Right now. what's wrong with that? Who says Primo has to be a banger? Why can't he be just like Ali or Larry Holmes the kind of guy who score a lot of stoppage wins without being a banger? This is really where you prove to everyone that you only want to believe in the insulting storyline of that wonderful Hollywood movie that was pure fiction and entirely fact free. Primo only lost fights that were on the level? how did he fool all the fight people of the day into saying he was better than given credit for, a brave man and a capable boxer in his own right? Valuev could not knockdown David Haye. So what? For all his size Primo was only usually a fair puncher against smaller men yet he nailed the giant campolo to the canvas. There is nothing wrong with a guy saying he finds smaller guys harder to nail. And again, why does he have to be such a great puncher to clock up so many inside the schedule wins? After all I have demonstrated how Ali with his 81% Ko record in his first career or 61% after his second career does not need to be a chilling puncher to smash Archie mores KO percentile. Besides, Primo was accused of not having a killer streak and often showed compassion to a hurt fighter. so why wasn't Valuev then? Why isn't anybody screaming about the legitimacy of Valuevs career?
The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California) 28 Nov 1931, Sat Page 5, Column 1 By Edward J. Neil Excerpt from: CARNERA FINISHES CAMPOLO This content is protected