An opinion on Primo Carnera from 1993

That article was going well, until: "

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I have to admit, it seems a bit of an ask:

1993
Title Vacant

1. Evander Holyfield*
2. Riddick Bowe
3. Lennox Lewis
4. Michael Moorer
5. Michael Bentt
6. Oliver McCall
7. Ray Mercer
8. Phil Jackson
9. Tommy Morrison
10. Mike Hunter

 

Just slightly.

The impression I get is that Soberanes is more into Carnera than he is into boxing.

 

Even so, there is clearly a spectrum of opinion that has to be considered.

 

This forum has done just that, dozens of times over; quite likely involving higher value opinions than that related in the OP.

 

Carnera was an impressive physical specimen who did train hard and learned some boxing moves over the years. Very strong and fit and huge. He was brave too.

But he really couldn't punch, he tended to push. And he couldn't take a punch well at all.
And it is true that his record was built on set-ups and fixed fights. Lots of the fights ended extremely unsatisfactory.

 

The author of the article is wrong about some things, but right about others.

He is wrong to say that Carnera would have beaten the best heavyweights of 1993, but he is right that he is one of the more impressive big men on film.

A lot of people don't want to admit that.

 

Because it's an entirely subjective viewpoint, with which one does not have to agree.

 

I get the idea that some fight fans watch fights through two sets of glasses.

the people who are looking for reasons to prosecute Carnera on film, often shrug off similar, or in some case much worse flaws, in more modern super heavyweights.

 

A fair and balanced opinion on Carnera, which he didn’t get during his career considering how much the media hated him despite the fact that Carnera beat a lot of good competition before getting a titleshot and was willing to fight all styles.

The Associated Press and Outfits that ran most of the big arenas really had an axe to grind with Carnera and his management and took shots at him almost everytime they wrote pieces on him.

Carnera before his unfortunate ankle injury in the Baer fight, which he never fully recovered from would’ve had a good shot against any of the big men in 1993. However, after the ankle injury Carnera wasn’t as mobile or durable and became very beatable.

 

This makes me wonder, does everyone underrate the era they're living through? Are kids in 2050 gonna look back at today and think "Man, prime Anthony Joshua would walk through today's heavyweights"?

 

In some respects, viewing the different eras of Carnera and the "more modern super heavyweights", through different lenses of his time and this time, is not only understandable, but also quite necessary.

For one thing, the modern guys, like Fury, Joshua and Wilder, are unlikely to enjoy the kind of physical advantages over their opposition, as Carnera did over a considerable number of his opponents. Today's behemoths will rarely find themselves matched against guys weighing less than 210lbs and something the author neglects to mention is the 84lb weight advantage Carnera had over "one of that time's cleverest boxers" (Loughran).

 

An era, currently being lived through, represents a 'work in progress' and 'history in the making'. So, it is quite likely to be undervalued, while assessments are also in the progress of being made with less than a complete picture.

Couple this with a fundamental lack of understanding of the sport and you have the recipe for uninformed, sweeping statements, like the one made by Soberanes.