Whatever their shortcomings both of them could punch. This would be terrible to watch a onesided beat down.
Bingo. Regardless of his mammoth size, Carnera was no hitter. Hell, even in an era where he was a giant among 190 lb men, he still wasn't that impressive from a power perspective. Lewis by first or second round KO.
I think it depends on whether or not Lewis can blast Carnera out early: if he succeeds, he wins by KO/TKO. If not, I think it would be a scrappy fight with a lot of holding, leading to a decision win for Lewis. I don't think Lennox did well against tall boxers, UNLESS he could stop them quickly. I also think Lewis was well aware of this, which is why he was usually very keen to get big opponents out of there quickly: thus he looked very impressive against Golota, Biggs, Ruddock and in the first round against Grant, but when you have two tall boxers they have a tendency to wrap up in clinches and that would tire anyone out, especially if you're not used to having someone lean on you. Look at Lewis's fights with Akinwande, Tucker, Klitschko and in the second round against Grant: Lewis won in every case, but he looked unimpressive in every case. The Briggs and Mavrovic fights would have been similarly poor affairs were it not for the fact that Lewis and those two elected to brawl rather than fight a safety-first fight. The same could be said for Carnera. The one opponent he faced on film that was big was George Godfrey and that was a horribly scrappy fight with plenty of fouling from both men. When he couldn't use his reach, Carnera seems to have fallen back on his strength and tried to wrestle/rabbit punch to wear his opponents down in close. Put those two analyses together and you either have a demolition job by Lewis (a definite possibility) or a long, ugly fight with Lewis coming out on top, but not after taking a fair bit of leather (both legal and illegal) from Carnera.
And Don Steele's KO percentage is around 85%... WHO you fight has every bit as much to do with it, as the outcome... While Carnera certainly had stoppages over a few world beaters, there are a helluva lot more journeyman, tomato cans, and men of drasticially smaller size on that record..
Surely it's obvious that Carnera was indeed a "hitter", just not a big hitter? I'd say he had about average power, which seems to be the norm for giants (see Valuev, Willard, Zolkin, Akinwande, A-Farce etc.) though of course there are exceptions, like Lewis. In fact, there's a reason why, as a tall boxer, one can't hit as hard in practice as in the gym: when punching against a much shorter opponent, there's a trade-off between being off balance (if you load up) or arm-punching. It takes either brilliant technique (Lewis, Wlad etc.) or very heavy hands (Foreman, Vitali) to be tall and a knockout artist. Primo Carnera had neither brilliant technique or heavy hands.
Why do you think ,given his impressive % Carnera has never been considered a puncher? Could it also have something in common with him NOT being named Fighter Of The Year in 1933 when he won the Heavyweight title?
Which fights of Carnera's lead you to form this opinion? By the way Carnera fought several men taller than himself.