Sharkey said he fought to win that night to the day he died. Jack's wife never believed him. I disagree that it makes him a dishonorable man. It makes him sane and pretty normal if it played out that he was threatened or his family in any way. I feel sorry for him that he had to live with that the rest of his life.
You don't have to believe everything that you read on the internet. Many would advise that you don't!
It is, but you would need fairly overwhelming evidence, to say that it did happen. Also it is highly unlikely!
If Sharkey took a dive against Carnera, it was good business. There would be absolutely no need for anyone to threaten his family. That's like something from a bad B-movie. I doubt big-time gangsters and shady boxing managers threaten people's families at every opportunity, over such a simple business matter. And, IF he took a dive against Carnera, likely it wouldn't have been the first time he 'tanked' a fight.
The only "threat" needed is the threat to take all his purse, hit him with lawsuits, cripple him financially, and blacklist him with boxing managers and commissions far and wide, make him an untouchable pariah. That's ample. versus You get your whole purse PLUS a whole lot more if you take the dive. It's a no-brainer.
It would be a hard case to make. Schmeling took the title, mid-'31. Around the same time, the best line on Carnera's record, is a dubious DQ against Godfrey. He would later, in the same year, drop decisions to both unranked Maloney and number-1 contender Sharkey. Losing to unranked Gains in May '32 would not have helped his case, either. When was this seriously considered?
Essentially, we have suspensions and purse confiscations from opponents, who clearly appeared not to try. There are fighters reporting they were bribed and threatened (Clark). The incident you might be referring to is the Chevalier case, in which his cornermen rubbed pepper into his eyes, when it appeared as though he was trying to win a fight he'd agreed to 'lose'. There are cornermen chucking the towel in for no adequately explored reason and cases of really bad acting by opponents feigning a severe impact of punches with next to no power. Few doubt there were a litany of Carnera bouts that were tampered with.
This^. Sharkey was no white knight. Buckley and he were as in with the shady inner workings, as anybody. People seem to forget that the doubt over the legitimacy of the bout had as much to do with Sharkey's reputation as it did Carnera's. What I would add, however, is that the stakes involved for a World Title fix would have been huge and the scale of these types of sting tend to remove barriers from the lengths that stakeholders will go, to ensure success. I would say that if the fix was in, then repercussions of all types were at the very least implied to ensure anyone involved refrained from re-acquiring a conscience.
Schmeling pulled out of a scheduled fight with Carnera in 1931, and fought Jack Sharkey instead. It probably worked to Carnera's advantage, because a more experience version of Carnera, ended up getting a shot at a weaker champion. However, it suggest that Carnera took his title shot when he could get it, not at an optimized time.
Yes - This was during a fortnight period, after the Schmeling/Stribling bout. It was cancelled within a week of being signed, with no venue having been decided. Schmeling apparently developed an eye infection, during that week after signing, which led him to decide not to fight again, until the following June (11 months). Like I mentioned. Good fortune works in mysterious ways.
I think that this sequence of events probably did benefit Carnera. If the fight had gone ahead, then a less experienced version of Carnera, would have fought a better and more consistent champion. However the cancelation of the fight was obviously a big disappointment for Carnera at the time. Ironically, if the fight had happened, then Carnera would have been what you make him out to be, i.e. a manufactured contender built on second raters. By the time he got a shot at Sharkey, he had beaten some top contenders, and he deserved his title shot. Personally I don't think that Carnera's handlers ever expected him to become champion, or at best they saw it as a 50/50 prospect briefly. I am certain that their plans never depended upon Carnera becoming champion!
