[1935 article] Carnera says that Louis hit harder than Baer

And Ray Arcel boxing greatest ever trainer who trained Baer and watched Dempsey train and fight from ringside stated that Baers right hand power “was not close” to Dempsey’s.

 

Baers punches killed men

 

Any punch can kill a man when struck at the right time upon the right man.

 

Sour grapes by Carnera. Neither Louis nor Dempsey( specially Dempsey) can compare to Baer in terms of crude-power

 

I could find at least four men who said the opposite!

 

Not necessarily, Louis may indeed have hit Carnera harder than Baer did.A fighter can only share his opinions judged by how he felt when he was hit by respective opponents. eg Archie Moore said Curtess Sheppard and Yvon Durelle hit him harder than Marciano. Ezzard Charles said Lloyd Marshall and Bob Satterfield hit him harder than Rocky did too.Don Cokkel said he was hit harder by various unnamed opponents but never so consistently.Joe Louis said the hardest he was ever hit was by Al Delaney. That isn't to say that any of these men were harder punchers than others, more celebrated that hit them, just that they hit them harder .

 

I just don’t get Baer and the hype around him.
Technically he was shocking and simply relied on his sound chin and the big right hand.
Was his power that off the wall though?

 

If his power wasn't off the wall, his success with his shockingly terrible style becomes really hard to explain.

Just as a general aside, I sometimes wonder whether these "Who hit hardest" questions of fighters sometimes ignore the complicating factor that a punch taken as an old man might seem harder just because your punch resistance has declined.

 

Schmeling, Galento, Sheppard, and the fourth one escapes me right now.

 

You can see that even though Baer's technique was pretty damn bad, physically he was a beast. His punching power was extreme, even with his technical failings. Louis was technically correct and more accurate. Even though Baer may have been stronger I don't doubt that Louis could switch guy's lights off even more efficiently.

 

Good point, but not valid in Carnera's case as he was still relatively young.
Louis touched on your point after the Marciano fight saying, this kid knocked me out with a couple of punches whereas Schmeling needed a whole bunch,but I was younger then ,you can take more when you're younger.

 

Nova didnt fight Louis until September of that year.