Jack Sharkey: By Mike Casey

I think the argument between me and Old Fogey is not whether the book /film was based on Carnera ,it clearly was ,but on whether these influenced fans perception of Carnera . It might be interesting to know how many of the posters on here have actually read the book , or seen the film.

 

Fighters from the 20's who fought in what you term the 50's style.
Benny Leonard
Sammy Mandell
Fidel Labarba
Frankie Genaro
How many guys from the 50's were better boxers than these ?
Of those you mentioned let me say.
Burley did not affect a high guard.
Marciano ,relied on his crouch ,leaning over towards his right to avoid punches.
Louis had average defence,with very little head movement, he did NOT ride punches very well, most of his opponents were backpedalling because they were well aware of the murder in his fists,those that bit the bullet and chanced their arm ,even limited sluggers like Tami Mauriello and Galento hurt and shook him up.

Lamotta was really a face first fighter, as Fritzie Zivic said of him " he would get insulted if you missed him"
Zale was vulnerable to good boxers,not a very good choice if we are talking about good defence.His toughness made up for it,but then again ,the "Black Dynamite" is conspicuously missing from his resume.
Machen and Folley I will give you ,classical boxers in any era.
Liston had very underated boxing skills .The trouble is the perception of him is arrived at by viewing his fights with Ali and Martin , when he was A. Old ,B .not in top shape, and C. hitting the Booze quite heavy. My contention is he was past his best when he finally got to Patterson.
I dont care for the peekabo defence ,I think it is basically a self defeating deal, because you are obscuring your own vision ,and you have to come out of it to throw your own shots,and many was the time when Floyd did so and got nailed.
It may be heresy to say so ,especially about such an undoubted ATG icon ,but the armadillo defence adopted by Achie Moore is flawed also. Archie began to use it when his legs started to go on him and he could no longer manouver backwards as he had once been able to. If you look at that cross-armed defence he affected, he left his body exposed .
Walcott and Charles? fine old school fighters ,want to look at a clever boxer ,get a film of Billy Graham,and he was short of being great.
Lastarza? Good boxer but nothing exceptional.
Billy Conn exceptional boxer .Why ? Dont look at the position of his hands .Look at his feet!Same with Jack Delaney Loughran ,Slattery [an early Ali prototype],Tunney.
Willie Pep,he was called Will O The Wisp because of his Footwork.
Same thing with Niccolino Locche, its the legs that carry them out of danger ,they arent blocking punches they are out of range of them.

 

In the United States, it is very hard to win such a law suit. One not only has to prove that what was said isn't true, one must also prove malicious intent---that what was said is known to be untrue and was said anyway with the deliberate intent to injure. That is a pretty steep hill to climb and I think all but impossible when we are talking about a work of fiction. After all, all the defense really has to say is that it was because we did not want to hurt Carnera's reputation that we called him Toro Morino and changed the basic facts of his life---Carnera was Italian. Morino was Latin American, etc.

 

When I mentioned the fact that Carnera brought a suit for damages against the book and film ,and lost , my intention was not to show that this meant the book and movie were therefore totally accurate.
I just thought it was additional interesting info.
PS It's still Molina,"The Giant Of The Andes".
A quote on the abilities of Primo Carnera ,made by Jack Johnson.
"About the only thing I can say in favour of Primo Carnera, is that he has mighty big feet" .:yep

 

The terminology used in libel law is "suficient diference".

It is not a verry well defined legal concept but basicaly if you can prove that there is suficient diference between a fictional character and the real individual they are based upon you have not libeld them.

On this basis I would say that Carnera was inherantly unlikley to win the case.

 

Odds on the fight were pretty even in the Sharkey -Carnera II fight. If Sharkey was to gain big on the fight then Sharky had to have LARGE MONEY BETS on the fight for Carnera to win. So, if Sharkey is so pre-committed with that much money on the line why is he trying to knock Carnera's head off in the fight with big right hands??????? Sharkey is throwing and landing right hand Power shots in the fight. NO WAY THIS FIGHT IS A FIX !!! If there was that much MONEY on the line Sharkey would not fight this way.

 

That and it will take a ungodly amout of money to thown the richest prize in boxing in a fix.


I find it pretty hard that Sharkey thown the fight. Money wise, he would make more money AS Champion.

 

Sharkey fought 25 different boxers a total of 35 times that were rated in the Top 10 at one time or another in his 55 bouts. Only Ali, Louis, Holyfield and Charles had a better percentage (63.636%) among the Heavyweight Champions. Only 5 other HOF boxers from the other divisions had a better percentage. Sugar Ray Leonard comes in at 62.5 %, which is right behind Sharkey. Lewis had a 56.8%.

 

There is definitely a dimension to Sharkeys resume that is generaly overlooked.

His depth and quality of oposition was something special.

 

Sharkey's problem was not lack of talent, it was inconsistancy.

 

BUt is it possible that the level of talent fought is what caused the lack of consistency?

The nature of boxing is such that high level talent will cause upsets.
Wills was not inconsistent yet he lost to old Langford. Norton beat Ali. Johnson lost to Choynski and others, Tunney lost to Greb despite being better in the series. Dropping decisions to good fighters is not necessarilly inconsistency. Showing up untrained out of shape or in no condition to fight or simply putting up poor showings that bely your ability (Golota is the best example i can think of recently) is. Was sharkey inconsistent or did he just cop a few losses against world class opposition where he performed not quite to his optimum performance.

 

Not really because he lost fights to people like Gorman and Risko whom he should have comfortably out pointed and drew with Heeney who was not in his class.I discount his losses to Rojas ,and Weinert because he was still young ,and by the time he lost to Loughran etc he was no longer focused as a boxer.No one knew what Sharkey would do in the ring ,not even him.

 

Bump

 

Yes ... Primo's punch "clearly" missed Sharkey by a whole "foot or more."

https://streamable.com/mjlm3

This is how nonsense gets passed along from generation to generation. Especially in the decades before fight footage was easily obtained by people.

The right uppercut Mike Tyson threw that knocked Marvis Frazier's head back missed by a whole foot or more, too. It's true. Astonished ringsiders said so.