Primo Carnera's ability

I’m re posting this


“Carnera is from that school of thought where the next heavyweight champ was "discovered" in some remote backwoods whose gifts were so prodigious compared to the rest of humanity they only needed a few sessions with a trainer to be polished up and presented to the public, a title shot looming from day one.

Putting these guys in with modern elite pros would be a travesty... unless you still subscribe to the above school of thought.”

 

Of course not! He was assisted up after the count of ten by Sam McVey who was his chief second. There is a lot of ignorance here lately.Why don't these clowns just watch the fight?

 

Gene Tunney said ,"he falls apart when he is hit and doesnt have a clue what to do."
How can that be reconciled with being a good technical boxer? Absurd!

 

Like most people who criticise Carnera's technique, your post is conspicuously lacking in anything specific.

You actually only need a few minutes of footage of a fighter doing something, in order to prove that they were capable of doing it!

 

Joe Louis said Carnera had “nothing”

 

I don't think you've done enough here to explain what his boxing "ability" really amounted to. Surely, this needs to be measured, in terms of his effectiveness against other Heavyweights? We can then, at least, get a sense of what it seems he could or could not do at various levels.

Having debated this topic before, I feel like I am covering old ground when I suggest that, quite a number of the reports I have read, focus much on Carnera's physical conditioning and his ability to absorb punishment. I've also read some that were surprised at the relative agility he had, for a man his size. Indeed, on occasion he shows such movement, albeit rarely. Most often referred to is Carnera's left hand - a "whipping" jab.

I have yet to find any writer, who has outright referred to him, as a good boxing technician. I've no doubt that he developed a little boxing ability and I do agree that he probably tried hard to improve. I also think he could demonstrate a little ability, when he put his mind to it. I just don't think that it came naturally to him, or that he was able to fully integrate any ability he had with his obvious physical advantages.


I've always considered the post-Tunney / pre-Louis period to be a pretty poor one, if not the lowest point in the division's history. This is the period in which Carnera's relative success, at having won the title, seems to be blown out of all proportion by a minority.

For mine, his loss to Gains, places matters into some perspective. Soon after that his loss to Poreda, a genuine Top-10 rated contender, provides enough evidence that Carnera was very limited. And, this was less than a year before Carnera got the title shot. The question is, just how much do we think Carnera had improved in 11 months from then?

We have reports on the second Levinsky fight. A number of these reports reference Carnera as an improved boxer - again, highlighting the jab. Some refer to his use of physically rough tactics. So, here we have to ask ourselves does Carnera have anything else in his locker apart from a jab; surprising agility and getting physical with the smaller guys he was fighting, when the jab appears to have failed him and his opponents have gotten in too close?

There looks to be some value to this win, on paper. But, does it speak much for his ability? I don't think so. Levinsky, after all, weighed in at 197lbs and is listed as being 5' 11" tall. The result was a close SD.

There's more study that could be done, but I don't think it would get much further past the general belief that Carnera could move a bit, had a jab and could manhandle, when necessary, which seems to have been often. The Baer bout brings it all home.

As good as some think Carnera was, the defense against Baer was a complete and utter catastrophe, from start to finish, for Carnera. If he had any ability, it showed little, if at all, in this bout. As Tunney, who was never on the Carnera Bandwagon, puts it:

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I think this puts a cap on it.

One might call Carnera a "good" Heavyweight and, quite probably, be able to demonstrate the same, with some effort. However, whilst I think even supporting the 'good heavyweight' idea is a bit of a struggle, the argument for him being a very big, physically gifted, but very limited talent in boxing, is much easier to provide for.

 

Superb post!

 

His record on paper is pretty good.

While he was clearly not of the same caliber as the very best of the era such, as Sharkey, Schmeling and Baer, he was clearly a cut above the Levinskys, Laskys, and Neusell's who made up most of the top ten.

The fighters of the period, seem to give him a much better write up, than the writers of the period.

They often did praise his defense and boxing ability, as we have covered previously.

You might well be justified in this belief, but even in a weak era it is not easy to beat top ten guys.

You don't do it regularly without some sort of depth to your game.

I think that Carnera improved his game significantly after the Gains fight, and indeed changed his style significantly.

The bottom line is that every champion has what you call their prime, and I think that Gains and Poreda were just outside it in this case.

Isn't this just the sort of skill set that all super heavyweights rely upon?

Using their physical advantages to nullify their opponent.

The Baer fight has to be interpreted carefully.

If you watch the entire thing and not just the highlights, then you will see that Carnera has some success outboxing Baer in the early rounds.

At some point in the fight Carnera broke his ankle, which basically left him as a tethered goat, and it is debatable exactly when in the fight this happened.

Even so, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Carnera was vulnerable to a straight right counter.

 

I don't mean to beat a dead horse here, but all one needs to do is look at the footage we have of Primo, and we can clearly see; a fighter who's limited in his boxing technique and defense, and who would have very little to offer any of the top HW Champions of the past or future, except maybe a decent jab. It's simply all there to see, and unmistakably so, but yet he's somehow built up as this SHW h2h monster. He's not, and yelling "lineal champ" over and over, or piecing together a minute clip (of his entire career) where he happens to not look so inept isn't going to change what we can visually see.

 

Well you see there we have a problem, because many people are looking at the film, and coming to a very different conclusion from you!

 

I've given you tons of specifics in the past, including video excerpts that you personally requested. When I asked multiple times for your assessments of the footage, you were either unwilling or unable to offer any.

That's not how it works at all. Even novices and newbies can look technically proficient here and there, for seconds at a time.

 

Are they really though? (other than Reznick)

 

Many? I don't think so remember the last poll? You, Choklab, and Rez isn't many.

 

Your memory seems to be a bit selective on this subject.

That is exactly how it works.

We could take virtually any fighter, and find instances where they behaved in a manner that was not textbook correct.

A fighter only has to demonstrate an ability once, to prove that they had it.

Once that has been pinpointed on film, you can't squeeze the toothpaste back into the tube, by pointing out an instance where they didn't do it!