There weren’t many ranked heavyweights in the early 90s Who I’d pick primo Carnera to beat. Maybe a few briefly rated fringe guys like Orlin Norris.
Which brings up this bit from an article by Gary Jenkins on the internet: "One member of Owney Madden's team was a movie star named George Raft." "He could slip into the Madison Square Garden dressing rooms relatively unnoticed, and later told the story how he did so one night in 1930, prior to a Carnera bout." "As Raft's biographer, James Robert Parish, tells it, Carnera's opponent, that evening--Big Boy Peterson, another outsized contender--refused to throw the fight. Owney Madden's vested interest in his Italian fighter--not to mention all the money that had been wagered on his win--meant that this was a major problem for the criminals who handled Carnera. Raft was the perfect one to fix the problem, and so he slipped into Peterson's dressing room, chatting and laughing. Somehow, he managed to spike the fighter's drink. Peterson came into the ring so woozy that Carnera knocked him out in the first round." Reads like fiction, and not very plausible fiction, to a skeptical reader. Raft died in 1980 and so is long gone to dispute anything written about him. And Peterson. His career record at boxrec is 41 wins, 36 losses, and 7 draws, with 16 KO victories, and 15 KO defeats. This "outsized" heavyweight is listed as 6' tall. He was on a 3-11-3 run going into the Carnera bout. Appears to be a low-level journeyman brought in as a setup. Now just a reasonable question for a skeptic, and again I don't know what the facts are or what the truth is, but would like to. Other than the articles by these credulous and mainly fiction writers, what is the actual evidence that Owney Madden was involved with Carnera? Or ever purchased his contract? I ask because another writer has Al Capone involved with fixing the Sharkey fight. That fight was 1933. Capone went to Alcatraz in 1931. But he is a better known gangster than Madden and adds even more spice to the story. So has Madden also been dragged in to flavor the fiction? Also, was Luigi Soresi the manager of Carnera from late 1932 on, as is claimed by some articles?
Madden was listed as one of Carnera's owners, when the latter filed for bankruptcy in 1933. The truth is stranger than fiction, or didn't you know that?
"or didn't you know that?" I probably knew that cliche before you were born. It is a hollow cliche, though, as it begs the issue of whose truth and whose fiction. For example, I see that you find the truth of Carnera winning the title on the level stranger than the fiction of the Toro Morino take. Owney Madden. What is the primary source for the info on Carnera's bankruptcy filing? I found New York district court rulings, but Madden wasn't mentioned. Only Louis Soresi. This doesn't mean Madden wasn't part owner, but I would just like to nail it down. On Madden, though, owning fighters doesn't seem to have been unusual. This is from Carlos Acevedo: "Madden had a cut of, or controlled, dozens of fighters, including Johnny Wilson, Maxie Rosenbloom, Kid Francis, Gene Tunney, Bob Olin, Jimmy Braddock, Charley 'Phil' R-senberg, Ace Hudkins, Leo Lomski, Marty Goldman, and Max Baer." My question is, if this is true, how many of these men did Madden fix fights for? One thing about Madden. He might have been involved in fixing fights in 1930, but it doubtful at best in 1932 and 1933. Owney Madden was sent to Sing Sing on July 7, 1932 and served a year long term for parole violation. He was released in July of 1933. While Madden was in prison, Carnera returned from a European tour and on July 20, 1932 began an American tour. He won 17 of 18 to the end of 1932, with 14 by KO's. His one loss was a highly controversial decision to Stanley Poreda. His best wins were decisions over Art Lasky and King Levinsky. Most of his opponents were setups. This led to the Schaaf fight in February of 1933 and the shot at Sharkey in June of 1933 while Madden was still in Sing Sing. Madden was targeted because he was allegedly behind the rub out of Mad Dog Coll in February of 1932. They couldn't get proof against him for that, but they nailed him for parole violation. He kept a low profile when he got out and by 1935 had fled to Arkansas, where he lived for the rest of his life. I doubt if he cared that much during this time about Carnera, whose purses would have been chicken feed for Madden anyway. Here is an excerpt from Prizefighting: An American History by Arne K. Lang, on the Carnera-Sharkey fight: "Gallico chose to believe that Carnera captured Sharkey's title in a fixed fight, but few of his colleagues shared this opinion. Almost everyone who followed Carnera's career agreed that he improved as he gained experience. The punch which ended Sharkey's brief title reign was a vicious uppercut in the eyes of many ringsiders. Moreover, there was nothing about the betting that hinted at skullduggery. According to the New York Times, the late money was actually skewed toward Sharkey. The Times reported that Carnera was a 6-5 favorite when Broadway bookies closed shop at 6 PM. An hour later, bookies working the crowd were quoting Sharkey the favorite at odds of 7 to 5."
I find this to be unlikely and it seems a pointless thing for you to say. It was actually popularized from a Mark Twain quote. To consider it hollow, in the context of its origins, is to completely misunderstand its meaning. The fictional character Toro Moreno doesn't win the Title. He merely gets battered by (quite ironically) Max Baer's character, Buddy Brannen. Max Baer did batter Primo Carnera in real life. Yours is not a good example of the 'Truth is stranger than fiction' idiom. Moreover, I am not convinced, either way, about the legitimacy of the Sharkey/Carnera bout. A better example of the idiom's full meaning in practice, would be your incessant dismissal of any evidence, which favors the idea that Carnera was a manufactured commodity, so as to place your own alternative versions of the story, in its stead. I've pointed you in the right direction. I'm sure if you continue your search, you'll find plenty of reports about Carnera's bankruptcy, which occurred during mid-1933, of which some will make reference to the listing. It wasn't. You obviously have doubts about Owney Madden's involvement in the fight game and, in particular, his involvement with Primo Carnera. It would be worth you establishing the facts about Owney Madden to your satisfaction, before introducing additional lines of inquiry, about different boxers and their results, which Madden may or may not have had influence over. It's an opinion but I think you underestimate Madden's reach and influence. I think this^ mischaracterizes Gallico's take on the Sharkey II fight. What "Gallico chose to believe" about Carnera, was much, much broader than just this one bout. In addition to this, on the day after the fight, Gallico stated, " This content is protected " Also - I don't think the comments about the betting are particularly indicative, one way or the other.
Bill Duffy was a racketeer in the speakeasy and bootlegging business with Owney Madden anyway, and no one disputes Duffy's involvement (in fact, no one disputes Madden's involvement either, but there's always some new angle in this forum ....). Duffy had a long criminal record and was holed up with Madden in Sing Sing back in the 'teens or early '20s. I think Duffy was in for something like murder or manslaughter, but I might have misremembered. Somehow Duffy was a licensed manager. He worked with Dempsey in the 1920s too. The New York commission had formally banned Madden from fights sometime in mid-20s, he was so notorious, but that didn't stop him attending, he practically did what he liked in Manhattan for years, and some reckoned him a "Czar" of boxing. Generally he was a very important person, with political connections, and he ran the beer racket. He loved boxing, and lots of memoirs of boxing people attest to his influence in the game, some say was largely positive, some negative. Carnera was a 'money machine' for a lot of crooks, at a time when Prohibition era was ending, and further commercial expansion into the boxing racket presented a lucrative business. Carnera was signed up to these Broadway racketeers before he even arrived in America.
Actually it might have been armed robbery that Bill Duffy was in Sing Sing for, rather than homicide. But he was picked up and questioned about the murder of a nightclub singer sometime after that, and apparently it looked like he'd been in some sort of scuffle and had a bullet hole in him. None of which means he'd stoop to fixing boxing matches. But he was hardly a saint.
@Jason Thomas Curious as to why you changed your name from Old Fogey to Edward Morbious and now Jason Thomas?
