Best five wins thread. Lineal / Ring Magazine heavyweight champions.

He essentially admits to involvement in criminality on a massive scale, but claims that after he gets muscled out of his prize cash cow, he suddenly feels honor bound to tell the truth.

Can you imagine what would happen if we put this man on the witness stand, and grilled him about his claims?

Furthermore, what he is claiming is itself not particularly plausible.

Can you imagine the logistics of fixing that many fights, over that sort of timescale, sometimes in different countries?

Would you really go to the expense of fixing a lot of fights against non entities, for a man who was good enough to fight George Godfrey on more or less even terms?

Furthermore if they needed to fix lots of fights against non entities, how did they ever hope to recoup their investment?

 

Mullally's book give a good insight but too detailed to go into here. In some ways it was a long tem investment(which paid off) if you believe it. The earlt European stuff would have cost little and then Owney Madden had deep pockets and plenty of contacts, so yes i think it is plausable.

 

Would that sort of long term investment make sense, even if it was possible to organize?

Bear in mind that you don't know that he is going to become the champion, or even a huge draw in the states.

 

Read Mullally if you can but remember See, Duffy and Madden were rich men, this was something of a pet project if you like.

 

Even so, how many fights do you get to fix before people question your whole career?

I actually largely agree with you. A lot of his early fights probably were fixed, though I doubt anything is provable now. Kind of ironic they were fixing his fights against nobodies when as it turned out he could hold his own against Hall of Famers on the level.

 

Carnera was a circus strongman. I would not be surprised that he had many fixed fights early in his career, as his training wheels were still on as he learned his craft. I believe Wilder was handled in much the same way, and I do believe the Wilder Scott fight was not on the level. However like Wilder perhaps he was left to his own devices once he reached championship level and like Wilder his huge dimensional advantage in height and reach for his era, compensated or covered up many of his flaws. He does look light on his feet for a man his size and he tries to maintain distance with a decent jab but he was a sucker for the right hand and for a man his size he may have had "strength" but it didn't manifest itself into punching power.

 

Carnera's first American fight was against veteran New York fighter [url]Clayton Peterson[/url]. Though "Big Boy" Peterson was renowned for his size, Carnera outweighed him by more than sixty pounds. Peterson managed to last one minute and ten seconds against the hulking European invader, though newspaper writers noticed that the New Yorker "showed no inclination to fight." Less than a week later a fighter named [url]Elzear Rioux[/url] fell down six times in the opening round of his fight with Carnera in Chicago, stunning many in the crowd who swore they never saw Carnera land a single punch. After an investigation by the Illinois Commission, Carnera was cleared of any wrongdoing, though Rioux lost his boxing license. A string of similar knockouts followed, all either potential set-ups or against no-hope opponents who were outweighed by as much as seventy-five pounds. In a period of just four months, Carnera appeared in the ring sixteen times, winning every one of those bouts by the short route.
A poster has asked where is the proof Carnera had fights fixed?
We have the statements of two of his managers,See and Duffy ,we have eyewitness reports from journalists.
We have boxers being suspended, boxers having their licences taken away.
What more proof should be provided?
Is it likely his opponents,Rioux,Peterson,Clark,Stribling,Chevalier,Gorman ,Wiggins etc were going to later say,"oh yeah I threw the Carnera fight"?
What proof is there Liston took a swim against Ali?

One of Chevalier's seconds, Bob Perry, threw in the towel, although it appeared to all that the boxer was in no worse condition than Carnera. "A bitter demonstration followed. Half a dozen fans attacked Perry, striking and kicking him. In the melee he suffered a cut under the eye. Fellow countrymen of Carnera's stood on chairs and shouted 'fake' and urged the huge Italian be made to fight over again." (AP) The boxing commission started an immediate investigation. Mrs. Chevalier told them her husband had been approached earlier to agree to a "fake fight," but that he had directed all business to his manager, Tim McGrath. McGrath declared he had no knowledge that Perry was going to throw in the towel, and that the towel should not have been thrown in. Carnera's purse was withheld.

Carnera has a very impressive ko record, yet he is not in any list of great punchers,neither did any of his opponents ever say he was a hard hitter.
Why is that?
It is usual when a fighter wins the heavyweight title for him to be awarded the Ring fighter of the year.
The year Carnera won the title ,the Ring refused to give an award .
Why was that?

 

If they did then they were definitely doing it the hard way!

 

This is my thinking.

 

An irregular betting pattern emerged before the fight, and none of the major venues would touch it!

 

The betting idea has been disproved .THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANY CONCRETE EVIDENCE OF A FIX.
Which is my point,unless a fighter confesses he took a dive,it cannot be proven.