Better All-Around Fighter: Primo Carnera or Riddick Bowe?

Revisit your train of thought and figure out how on God's Green Earth you thought Primo was better all around than Bowe?

 

You can seek professional help if that is your honest opinion.

 

OK let's look at it this way.

Let's say that you were training a super heavyweight of unexceptional natural talent, say a Price or Dimitrenko.

Would you advise them to copy the Carnera of the second Sharkey fight, or the Bowe of the first Holyfirld fight.

Which approach would be more likely to lead them to success?

 

Don't really disagree with such a statement. Problem is, it appears he can't draw upon all that boxing knowledge and insight to come up with a sound conclusion about something so obvious. This isn't something that can go either way, this should be cut and dry, and yet it seems not to be. If I'm the crew chief of a race car driver, and know almost everything there is to know about Nascar racing's history past and present, but I can't come up with the right conclusion about the set up of the car, and never win, then functional all that knowledge is more or less useless. Now, I'm not saying Janitor is, I like Janitor actually and appreciate his knowledge of the sport, which is why it's so confusing he can't see something so obvious.

 

No, but that is a good starting point.

Carnera has a style which would be far more likely to be effective for the vast majority of super heavyweights.

Now Carnera was very good on the inside as well, for example much better than either of the Klitschko's.

He was the complete package.

His weaknesses were that he lacked durability, and his power was mediocre for a man of his size, but he couldn't do anything about that.

 

Bowe tended to sacrifice his reach advantage by trading with smaller fighters on the inside, and his defense proved to be some what porous when he was fighting on the outside.

However brilliant he might have looked doing this, these are technical shortcomings.

Carnera when he finally got it all together, controlled the field of battle very well, using range and mobility, and switching to the inside when the issue was forced.

If Carnera had been born with Bowe's natural talent, then history might have been very different.

 

I dont want to put words in your mouth and i apologize for being rude since you are defending your position politely and with actual evidence.

-Are you saying that Carnera should be judged less harshly compared to super stars like bowe who had far more natural talent?

-are you saying he made the most of the tools he had available? In other words, that he couldnt have been any better unless he had more natural ability (given that he lacked one punch power and wasnt very durable)? His trainers had the best possible training methods and strategies to create an affective big man given what they were working with?

-Are you suggesting that we are perhaps overlooking Bowe's deficiencies due to how well he does in other areas? For instance, his lack of defense, lack of head movement, occasionally wild punching, and his tendency to give up his height and reach to engage at close range?

-^On that same note, are you saying Carnera isnt guilty of those same flaws Bowe had and thus was more "well rounded"...?

 

Come on guys. How is this a debate?

Bowe was simply better in every technical facet.

 

Yeah, I think this thread was bait (though it's also kinda fun to see on the board from time to time).

 

Carnera = Defensively porous, chin poor,power mediocre. Benefitted from a procession of fixed fights and no hopers who were just there for the payday,always well conditioned and had his share of courage . Came apart under pressure ,and with the underlined glaring faults ,most definitely NOT the complete package At his best not a top 40 heavyweight.
Bowe=Defensively weak,chin very good,power good. Not a deep resume but proven against a great fighter in Holyfield .No fixed fights have come to light. Dedication to training a major flaw . At his best a top 15 heavyweight.
One is basically an average fighter at best who was propelled into the title on the back of dubious results,in a very weak era.
The other had the potential to be a top ten ATG heavyweight imo.but lacked the character and dedication necessary to fulfil that potential.