Benny Leonard calls Primo Carnera's defense "Marvelous"

It's actually quite interesting because the discussion essentially revolves around comments made by Benny Leonard, prior to the Baer/Carnera bout. Leonard more or less assumes that Carnera's superior reach makes him a veritable fortress, which will be difficult for Baer to get past.

We all know the result, which consists of a sustained beating, beginning in the first round. The natural questions being, in response to Leonard's reasoning and the bout itself, if Carnera had such a great defense then how did he get tagged so easily by Baer?

There is of course the Klitschko comparison but, I really don't see it myself.

 

I actually think the delivery of the punch is very good. But, Baer did give advanced warning of it and this is why I think Carnera, had he been a little bit more defensively savvy, could have defended against what really turned out to be the beginning of the end for him, in this fight.

 

Ha ha! I thought it was strange that you were agreeing and yet arguing. I assumed you'd been on the Stella, McVey.

 

I can see why Leonard would feel that the reach advantage would be hard to overcome, but Baer seems to have been well prepared to get that right home. Haven't watched it for some time, but as I remember his plan seemed to be all about that. And it worked quite well, of course.

 

Yeah, you have to respect his effectiveness.

 

That's just it though, whilst Leonard's pre-fight reasoning is sound, there is little to suggest that Carnera actually utilized his reach advantage fully in the fight itself. Baer, in turn, took advantage of the gift Carnera was giving him.

 

You elect to show a clip from what is arguably Carnera's best round of the fight and I still don't think I'm seeing what you're seeing.

Carnera continues to do what he did in the first round; move forwards and close the distance for Max. He stands square-on, at times, and despite Baer throwing little, he's able to counter Carnera coming in on several occasions, without reaching at all.

 

Bottom line is Carnera is showing movement and boxing ability far above what is generally thought of him.

 

You mean to demonstrate that, within roughly a 5 second timeframe, Carnera was able to sustain a jab; throw three and land one? OK.

As I said, that was Carnera's best round of the fight and Baer had taken his foot off the gas, it seems.

If you're only prepared to look at the small, "isolated" moments, in which Carnera did something that looked better than what he had been doing for the significant majority of the fight, then fine. But, please don't expect me to ignore what the bulk of the footage shows, which is somewhat removed from that short clip.

 

A few observations.

Firstly the fight is not the one sided beat down that you are presenting it as. Carnera out boxed Baer quite handily for a lot of the fight. His problem was that he was up against a durable fighter, who was quite prepared to take punches to land his own.

Secondly all superheavyweights who use the jab as their primary weapon are susceptible to the right hand. We saw it with Lewis, we saw it with Wlad, and we saw it with Valuev. The right hand that Baer hits Carnera with was a lot more deceptive than you are making it out to be.

Thirdly you can’t simply dismiss the role of the ankle injury, which would have impaired his ability to move around the ring, and set up punches effectively. There is some evidence that the ankle injury was caused by the first knockdown, watch the leg after Carnera gets up.

The knockdown is shown in slow motion at 6.32.

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Sure...

The footwork, which sees him leaning backwards to avoid a Baer left hand, with his back foot rooted to the spot until his front foot joins it, such that he's almost standing to attention - requiring a stumble for him to unconsciously reset himself.

The distance he creates, when throwing the jabs, from an almost square-on stance; left-arm still visibly bent; throwing two out of three over the top of Baer's head.

These moments cannot be considered strengths and advantage until their consistency can demonstrate an effective means of winning. They were neither consistent and at no time did Carnera look like he was winning.

 

What happened in the Neusel fight? Neusel was not hand cuffed was he? The blond Tiger had a great record before and after tangling with Carnera, and they met after the Baer fight. Here is the report of that fight:


Primo made good use of his long left jab, keeping it regularly in his opponents face and racking up points. Even so Neusel made his best showing in the first round. He rushed at Carnera with the opening bell and the force of the attack completely surprised the ex champion. Early in the round Neusel landed a barrage of combination punches to Carneras head and shook the massive Italian who pawed futilely and pawed ineffectively at his opponent. As the round wore on, however, Primo regained composure and began pummelling Neusel with left and rights to the head and body in what was to become a rout.


The second round was even for the first minute. Neusel started fast, but soon began missing as Primo ducked and weaved. An uneffected and smiling Carnera began landing unanswered blows. Two quick rights snapped Neusels head back, staggering the German to the ropes. He spent the rest of the round trying to avoid Carneras blows by going into the clinch.


Neusel again rushed Carnera as the third stanza began. He landed a quick left and right to Primos body, but this time Carnera countered with a hard left and right to Neusels face. For the rest of the round Carnera landed punishing combinations with minimal response from his opponent. By the end of the session Neusel, who was now clearly in trouble, staggered around the ring.


In the fourth round Neusel was near exhaustion. Still game, however, he mustered what energy he had left and put it all into a hard right cross that landed high on Carneras head. The shot rocked Primo, but he quickly steadied himself and continued stalking his worn down foe. Soon afterward Primo landed a hard left hook to the head that opened a deep gash above the Germans right eye and left him clearly stunned. Still lacking the killer instinct and disinclined to hit Neusel again, Primo looked at referee Arthur Donovan in the hope that the arbiter would stop the bout. To Primos dismay, Donovan waved to the two men to continue. With his eyesight impaired by the ugly gash and the streams of blood it exuded, Neusel raised his right hand as a sign of surrender and walked to his corner. The wounded, exhausted German was declared the loser by technical knockout after two minutes and twenty three seconds of the round.