First and foremost, it probably means that Baer was thrown to the wolves as a young fighter, while Carnera was brought along carefully. It does however imply, that Carnera was probably a bit better than the Hart's, Braddock's, and Briggs's of the divisions history.
I don’t see any proof that Joshua and Ruiz hit harder any than Carnera did, but that said hitting harder doesn’t make someone a better fighter. Also, what clever fighters that are hard to land on has Joshua or Ruiz beaten in their career yet. Price has failed to beat top competition every time he’s stepped up and got flattened by Tony Thompson, twice, who was well beyond his best years. Carnera was a top fighter for years and beat much better competition. Wilder has a very good right hand, but with the way he telegraphs it he would’ve had a hard time landing against against a lot of the clever fighters that Carnera fought. My coach pointed this out to Wilder himself when Medzhid Bektemirov knocked him on his backside several times when Wilder visited the fight factory several years ago. Also, I’ve seen Ruiz get the tar beaten out of him by both Ronald Gavril and Sakio Bika, so this idea that Ruiz is some killer just because he beat Joshua, who despite his success is still very green needs to stop. Ruiz is talented and against guys that stand directly in front of him and trade he does really well, but when guys make him use his legs and light him up he’s harmless, which is why so many trainers dumped Ruiz over the years. Guys like Jack Gross or Tommy Loughran would’ve toyed with Ruiz.
Primo was good. But he was too big to look as good as he was. Then as well as that, it has never helped the Carnera cause that the only film of Primo that anyone wants to see is where Max Baer keeps knocking him over when he had a broken ankle. Nobody wants to believe Sharkey, Laughran, Uzcudun, Schaff, Nuesell, Godfrey, Laskey, Levinskey And Campolo would make an excellent run of wins for any fighter active during those years Primo was active.
If Carnera was a manufactured fighter what does that make Joshua, Wilder, Vitali, or even Joe Frazier, and many other fighters that came after him. Almost no fighters would become a champion or have a decent or a clean looking record without careful matchmaking. Even Muhammad Ali himself would’ve had several losses on his record before challenging for a title if the Louisville Sponsoring Group didn’t take such good care of him early in his career. Eddie Futch himself on several occasions mentioned how carefully he matched Frazier when he was bringing him up and knew What styles Frazier would excel against or struggle with. Even during his title run Frazier for the most part was guided carefully. Frazier according to Futch would’ve never made it to a title shot without his guidance and matchmaking. Wilder is another guy that was matched very carefully by Rus Anber and going into the Stiverne fight said Wilder wouldn’t be able to stop Stiverne, but Wilder being Wilder tried to force the knockout anyway, but luckily Wilder didn’t pay the price for ignoring instructions. Without Anber’s careful matchmaking Wilder would’ve have lost several times before getting anywhere near a title shot. Joshua with less than 100 rounds under his belt was a unified champion. Without careful matchmaking and a very powerful and well connected company like Matchroom behind him he would’ve never became a champion as fast as he did. As much as people criticize Eddie Hearn he deserves a ton of credit, since when the opportunity presented itself to make Joshua a champ he jumped on it and even talked Ortiz into stepping aside, to fight Wlad, who’s days as a fighter were finished for a vacant title.
