Poll: How good was Primo Carnera?

I’m just trying to see who seriously means what on Carnera. If you had to be serious thirty to forty is how you see him ?

 

I wouldn' say he was great, but physically speaking he was a specimen, he was a big man with the muscles of a wrestler, great chin, good jab, and strong as could be, he was a good fighter, and a very iconic one, but was kinda clumsy and lacked rhythm.

 

You still seem to be in the bottom 20% on this don’t you? Over 80% voted that Primo was good to great.

Must be sour grapes..

 

Primo would not crack the top ten But Manual Char And Charles Martin can win legitimate titles today?

Anything can happen today. We have champions learning on the job. If you like Superheavyweights then I’m afraid you must acknowledge Primo. He’s right up there with the best of them.

 

Overwhelming poll consensus that Primo was a good fighter.

 

Beeing "good" is a worthless rating without a reference to refer to. Alot of the rating here in the classics is based on respect of former fighters, which is basically a good attitude towards achievements in sports.
Its a colored reflection and you´ll rarely find puplic interviews discrediting athletes. What does it mean? If this is true, and everyone can see its true for athletes of the past, the assessment of sports performance is clouded by a lets call it "baseline respect" for achievements.

Its not that difficult to see the lack of rational performance evaluation, when nobody wants to be disrespectful towards athletes, isn´t it? But to achieve pure rational evaluation, and I assure you I know what I´m talking about beeing a scientist, there is no interest in beeing disrespectful or contrary or anything. It´s not existent here.
Its just about strictly rational performance evaluation.
Considering this bias, it´s no surprise to find even more praising of athletes that tends to be good, aka "hero worshipping", since there is much less resistance in talking good than in talking bad.

Therefore, the higher a ATG/Elite Great Boxers with obviously good achievements rates, the more he will get overrated H2H. Like Ali, Tyson, Foreman, Lewis, Holmes, Wlad.
Fighters like Douglas, Norton, Fury, Mercer, Bruno, McCall, Povetkin, Ruddock would always be real threats to any Heavyweight out there.

In my opinion, there are either one of two attributes a Heavyweight (or any boxer for his weightclass) should have to considered a threat H2H:

- Beeing durable enough to take want comes there
- Having the power to a least get some respect from your opponent

At least having one of this makes the boxer having a basic attribute to build on. If the boxers has both, he is blessed and can be sucessfull, even if everything else is deminished. I´m not talking about James Smith power, its about applied power, which includes to get the punch to the target as quick as needed. David Tua, Ike Ibeabuchi, past it Tyson and Foreman were blessed with both a chin and power.

If the boxer has very good skills and none of the two attributes, its easier to win vs. fighters like Ali/Holmes than against a fighter like Lyle, Ruddock, Povetkin or Morrison.

So lets take this to Carnera. How can we rate his durability and applied power?

Durability: He got up alot, so at least his recovery seems to be there. I´m not sure about taking a punch. A avarage heavyweight could definately stun him and put him down.

Applied power: He was never known to be a solid puncher. If he had some sort of power due to raw weight and mass, its some sort of James Smith power (better puncher though). If that body/big arms and fists swing at the right target, they definately cause some impact. What hindered Carnera from doing so is his punching technique. He did have no accuracy or anything to throw an effective power punch or damaging jab.

For me durability > power for Carnera. But if he hit the spot, his power was okay. both not the worst, but not the best.

Carnera had another problem.

He was 260-270lb with 6'5 1/2". The man had the BMI (30) of a wrestler, build with an extreme bulky muscular physique. Its no wonder why people call him an oaf, because he moved like one. He was just not quick on his feet which is no surprise with that stature. This is why he also could not get his body in proper distance to make use of his raech. The feet didn´t effort it. He could not keep up the distance, alot of wrestling followed when opponents rushed in. He could not keep up the distance when a punch was thrown to his head. This is what Carnera did worse, he had absolutely no upper body/head movement to prevent himself from getting hit. He slurped there like a figure vs. Baer and Louis. No kind of protecting arms or fits in front of his face or anything. Instead he waggled his arms in front of him, not bringing him much protection. Often came in hand with grabbing, holding and wrestling, which works for smaller boxers with less raech who have to play that game.
I don´t want to write any more bibles here.

Conclusion:

Durability and power are medium. The problem was agility, or movement to keep a distance. Biggest flaw: Horrible defense both considered agility, head movement and blocking/ducking/rolling punches. No good punch technique beside natural power due to bad punching skills, timing and punch variability.
For today standards, a fighter close to his size and some raech would just pop his head with no applied power coming back. Some wrestling since Carnera was strong coud happen, rince and repeat. In therms of modern heavyweight boxing he would be very very beatable.

 

You said it right there. In your opinion.

In your opinion, a minority view, you feel Primo deserves only to be remembered as a fraud or a bum. This is not the findings of this poll. Unfortunately, your opinion is shared with the minority on this. The statistics speak for themselves.

If you would like a breakdown on my opinion of your assessment of Carnera using the points you make, I am happy to oblige. But it will just be my opinion. It will be more plausible, but it will only be my opinion. Just as your minority opinion is only your opinion.

 

I said top 10. Pay attention


Here is the top 10 today

RING

Champion: Tyson Fury

1. Anthony Joshua WBA, IBF, WBO
2. Deontay Wilder WBC
3. Alexander Povetkin
4. Joseph Parker
5. Luis Ortiz
6. Dillion White
7. Dominic Breazeale
8. Jarrell Miller
9. Adam Kownacki
10. Tony Bellew

Do you see charr or Martin in the top 10? I don't. They were nothing more than fake paper champions

Carnera does not beat a single man on that list

 

@choklab Did you read and understand the first part of my post?

What do you think of the outcome of some statistics in the General Forum, providing footage with users giving a **** about the respect of a fighters achievements, just rating for what they see, with a more seperated grading?

Its easy to call him good with the next lower rating absolutely discrediting the boxer. Are you that naive to call that an unbiased poll?

Besides this, I said before that he was more than a bum back then, when it was enough for 88 - 14 - 0 (about 15% loss). Much smaller, shorter and lower raech opponents could be troubled by his size and wrestling alone.

@SuzieQ49 : For the last Charr debate with choklab: I can even see Charr as well as Mike Weaver easily getting Carnera into deep water....

 

Who? Baskelball players?
Did you read my discription about the normal distribution of height considering the amount of population, even calculating everything?

Did he have alot of success by your definition?

Read my post. He did not have either one of the two "baseline attributes" in full distinct, plus more and more flaws. Take a comparable random 6'5" 245lb SHW from today (a journeyman today) and put him back into the 189lb Heavyweight devision. He won´t have it very hard.....

 

Of course he can. Carnera who beat Sharkey, Uzcudun and Schaff would absolutely become a belt holder today. He would have Parker for breakfast. He squashes Bellew. Miller? Whyte? These are all vastly inexperienced kids by comparison

 

We better stop here. Like @JohnThomas1 once said before: The fairytale game.