Primo Carnera TKO 9 Ray Impelletiere 1935

Primo most certainly did not have proper punching form. His arsenal was full of poorly-leveraged pushes, swats, and reaches. He regularly fell in with punches or otherwise took himself out of position with them. And I didn't see anything particularly impressive in the slow right-handed swat that you seem to be praising.

I don't think there's anything particularly sharp or advanced about his footwork. Looks pretty basic to me, though he's certainly more mobile than he would appear to be given his bulk.

Skills of a welterweight? Sharp pull counters? The (unscored) flash knockdown with that punch that he scored against Gains looked more like a flail than a sharp punch imo. And it landing was probably just as much luck as anything else. Otherwise we have to wonder why in the world he didn't nail Gains with a ton of sharp pull counters that fight? Gains was pressing the action on his front foot throughout the fight, and coming in with plenty of huge lead punches. For every "sharp pull counter," we can find numerous examples of Primo not knowing how to react to the much smaller heavyweight bullying and attacking him.

PS - Primo carries his weight as well as or better than Wlad (let alone the other guys you listed)?!? The Carnera revisionism continues to reach new heights!

 

"Flails" and "swats."
What are those?

You're talking about the awkward nature of SHW punches inherent in all of them due to restrictions of their size?

Vitali swats and flails more than Primo.
Lewis also had the same awkwardness to his punches.

From the footage you posted, and the footage I posted, Primos punches look to be sharper, crisper, and thrown with better form and technique.

Vitali will throw a punch that puts him so off balance that he crosses his feet. From there, he almost falls over, and then he proceeds to throw punches from that stance. If we are talking technical proficiency, Vitali makes more mistakes than Primo, and shows less quality in his finest moments of technicality than Primo does.

 

Ahh, suddenly the revisionism isn't quite so strong once the actual footage comes out! Always found it funny how this happens.

 

Primo having the skills of even a Tony Tucker or K Brother.

 

I don't personally think that there is anything revisionist in what I am saying about Carnera.

There were two schools of thought about him while he was active, and one of them has been remembered because it makes for a more sensationalist story.

I am merely carrying the flag for the people who thought that he was quite a capable fighter while he was an active fighter.

 

I'm not referring to them. We know how Carnera was viewed in his own time. Not particularly well.

I'm referring to posters on this forum, obviously.

 

"Primo Carnera has marvelous defense." - Benny Leonard

 

I find Schmeling to be fairly reliable in his testimony about other fighters.

He called it as he saw it.

 

The revisionism entails basically everything that Reznick has said about Carnera in this thread and several others (see the Bowe - Carnera thread). Doesn't make Reznick wrong per se but it's as stark an example of revisionism as we've had on this board in years. In the telling of Reznick, Janitor and others, Carnera is a skilled, nimble ATG; a defensively skilled big man who had sharp footwork and excellent distance control. A better all around fighter and more technically sound than Riddick Bowe.

 

But as we have pointed out, it is not revisionism.

There were people during Carnera's career who saw him as you see him, and there were people who saw him as I see him.

The latter group generally being a little bit closer to the action.

 

I get where you're coming from but the evolving appraisal of Wlad's overall abilities happened more or less in real time, during the course of his lengthy reign. And it's completely consistent with the available footage. I'm not sure that that's revisionistic at all, let alone worthy of being used as a counter-example to the Carnera revisionism we've had in this forum. Wlad earned respect by using his size to dominate able top contenders for a decade, whatever you think of it aesthetically and stylistically.

 

I do find myself rather enticed when I see your avatar pop up. You have a very objective way of approaching things and argue cases that I would like to myself, but can't find the right string of words or relative information needed to get that point across as well as you do This isn't the only good post you've shared in this thread, but I really liked this one

 

To the video itself:

Carnera does pretty well at breaking Impelletiere on the inside; which is impressive given that it was clearly Ray's plan to work in close and maul his rival. Once Imp wavered, Carnera then was able to tee off on him from range and eventually force the stoppage. Carnera wasn't necessarily gifted except with size, but his fundamentals seem pretty sound, all things considered. He used the jab pretty consistently and usually put something behind it. Moved reasonably well for someone who was naturally top heavy and even flashed a couple of decent combinations from time to time.

I've seen worse from better regarded, more modern fighters.

 

I think most, not all of them though, are saying Carnera = most of the modern heavyweights. Cause I hate to say it if you can’t see the similarities between Carnera and the giants of today then you’re not being very realistic.

 

They’re twins.