Carnera hits Sharkey with a phantom punch? (Great Quality)

It's pretty much impossible to tell from the footage because the punch lands with Carnera's huge back blocking our view .. I tend to be with the group that claims Carnera actually landed the punch of his career from pretty much his best angle and got his body behind it and caught Sharkey, past his own best and always a hot/cold fighter just right. Remember that Sharkey looks flabby and was fighting in a semi-trance all fight prior to this ..

 

It is also instructive to compare Sharkey in this fight, to his previous encounter with Carnera.

He just looks so much better in the first fight, both in terms of fluidity and technique.

 

I disagree fundamentally with the logic of the worst performance argument. Sports played by human beings often have this unexpected and perhaps downright goofy results.

A classic example was the performances of the NFL New England Patriots in the last season. The Patriots lost five games, all to teams which didn't make the playoffs, and three of which were losing teams. The worst, the pathetic Detroit Lions (with an apology to the noble King of Beasts forced to serve as their mascot) had a 4-12 record but defeated the Patriots easily, 26-10, a one-sided game. But the Patriots played 7 games against teams with 10 or more wins, and records from 10-6 to 13-3, and won them all. This doesn't on the face of it make any sense, but I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the only explanation is the games were fixed.

Now I know that many on this board have no interest in or knowledge of the NFL, but I think even an uninterested observer can tell the difference between failure against a 4-12 opponent and success against a 13-3 opponent.

The logic I disagree with is pulling out one performance, a poor one if the slant is critical, a good one if it is positive, to define a boxer or a team in any sport.

When we have film, much better for me is just study the film to see what it shows.

By the way, the Sharkey of 1933 in fact did not stop Loughran but lost to him and was knocked down by him. That might be more relevant than what happened in 1929. Yes, Loughran might have gone back, and probably did, but Sharkey may have gone back much more and that is really what matters concerning Carnera.

 

Does he look that much better ?Or, like Jeffries against Corbett was his opponent that much worse than previously ?

 

If you try your best to frame by frame this excellent footage ( well done again REZ) it seems like Primo swung that uppercut with his body behind it at close range and cracked Sharkey perfect on his chin ... the follow through of the right hand seems right and the way Sharkey's head goes up right before it seems right .. remember, the criticism of Carnera was not that he was not super powerful but the he was muscle bound and could not get his body behind his punches .. here it seems he did .. that's the best I got.

 

Quality work again Reznick. Keep it up

 

No.

Look at Sharkey in both fights.

In the first he is a mass of clever feints, and combinations.

In the second he is sluggish, and seems to hang all his chances, on an overhand right.

It is basically Tyson Douglas, except that Tyson was much better than Sharkey, and Carnera was much better than Douglas!

 

Buster Douglas would have boxed Carnera’s face off.

 

The inconsistent, "hot/cold" Sharkey was knocked out once between 1924-1933 and that in the controversial Dempsey fight. In that period he faced Moloney, Gorman, Weinert, Risko, Renault, Godfrey,Wills, McTigue, Heeney, Stribling, Loughran, Scott, Schmeling, Carnera, Walker and Delaney in a total of 37 top-class fights. The "inconsistent Sharkey" is one of boxing's lazy myths. As for the outstanding footage-well done BTW!- it's hard to tell. Sharkey was slipping no doubt, Carnera could have got lucky-but he was a powder-puncher-and as McVey said the wild-swinging Sharkey is strange, very strange.

 

Calzaghe got dropped by Jones' forearm. Not a KO, but it's at least evidence that forearm's can do damage. Also as someone has already pointed out, the punches before and the one Carnera landed afterwards could have done the most damage, or Sharkey might have already been out in his feet.

So many variables to take into account here that it's hard to say what really happened and because of Carnera's affiliations with the mob and previous fixes only muddys the water even more.

 

Not getting KO'd isn't the only aspect of being inconsistent. Of the 16 men mentioned, Sharkey lost to Maloney, Gorman, Weinert, and Risko and drew with Heeney and Walker up to 1933, and lost to Carnera and Loughran in 1933. So 8 of the 16 men you mentioned either beat or drew with him. And this discounts Dempsey. I think for a champion this is fairly inconsistent.

Someone like Jim Braddock with 22 defeats was stopped only twice in his entire career. Joey Maxim with 29 defeats was only stopped once in his 18 year career.

Your point deals more with the quality of his chin than his consistency. Sharkey didn't have an iron jaw, but didn't have a glass jaw either.

 

Thanks to this thread, I have now learned that being hit really hard with a forearm smash to the chin by a ripped 6'6" 260 lbs. man is no big deal.

 

Not necessarily.

At least Carnera had more than one good showing to his name.

 

I'm slowly coming around to thinking this is legit. I'm fixing on his back leg now and the way it reacts. It goes under very awkwardly and if you were going to take a dive you would try to land a bit more safely with that leg. Joe Frazier's back leg was doing some similar things against Foreman, going underneath him a couple of times from memory.

 

It's possible.