Primo Carnera

As I said Sharkey allways denied taking a dive against Carnera,I mentioned his comments to illustrate that some of Carneras fights were regarded as dubious,I never suggested that the Sharkey fight wasnt on the level ,though Sharkey handled Carnera with ease in the first fight even dropping him,possibly Carnera had improved,what makes me beleive some ,and I mean some not all of Carneras fights were fixed was his ko ratio,which was very high,yet he couldnt even wobble Loughran ,whom he outweighed by over 80lbs.Primo was better than he is generally given credit for ,he was a fair mechanical boxer with a ton of heart,but lets not go overboard and pretend he was one of the better Champs,he wasnt,his ko percentage compares favourably with most boxers yet noqwhere is he credited as a puncher in any list or AT ratings this suggests that some of his results are viewed sceptically ,at least.

 

For many years I thought Primo was exactly what I read he was.He was called the worst HWT. champ of all time.This is what the so called 'experts' in the written and televised news media said.Then I watched Primo fight Baer on ESPN Classic Boxing.A losing effort to be sure but Primo did'nt look all that bad.He was knocked down 11 times but he also got up 11 times demonstrating he had the most important asset a fighter needs which is Heart.His Boxing skills were basic but he got the most out of what he had.His foot work was ponderous but his balance was decent and he was far from the clumsy un coordinated slob he was made out to be.His greatest problem was that he could not take a punch.Primo was a much better fighter than he was made out to be and dos'nt deserve the title"worst Hwy.champ of all time"Thank you.

 

The mob fixed fights for him, even against men Carnera probably would have beaten, to secure their large, marketable boxer. That's what people investing in novelty fighters do. This is nothing new, although probably more so at that time. Carnera's legacy is that he got his ass handed to him by Baer and Louis. Period.

 

Primo won his title against Sharkey legitimately, in my opinion with that right uppercut, but in all succesive bouts, bout title fights and otherwise, you saw the true Carnera, "unenhanced" let us say, by the sinister hand of the mob. As stated in a previous post, you didn't see the "ko artist" as fashioned by the mob, but a guy who was unable to even faze a vastly outweighed Tommy Loughran, and his glass jaw, or, if you will, his propensity for getting decked was revealed. If he hadn't been protected in his early career by those thugs, then his cin would have been exposed much earlier, like it almost was against Sharkey the first time. He couldn't have been a total washout as a fighter, and he did have some skills, but you guys are painfully overrating him, and that is revisionism as much as those idiots who write those "Joe Louis wasnt a great fighter" threads.

 

Arguably the hardest punching heavyweight of all time and the best heavyweight finisher of all time.

You could always add that before that he won the heavyweight championship.

 

Carnera was groomed by shadowy people to become the next big (literally!) thing. Some of his fights were fixed, in other matches he had handpicked opposition. I was reading about Carnera last night incidentally in Harry Mullan's The Illustrated History Of Boxing and nowhere was it said that Carnera was good. Quite the opposite. According to the book, he was, among other things, "naturally clumsy" and "light hitting".
This was the situation painted not only in that book, but in almost every publication (including magazines) I have read over the years.
The overall consensus was that Carnera simply wasn't good. Not a bum certainly, but at best competent.

"The big bum kept standing on my feet." - Tommy Loughran.

 

"I'll moider the bum!"
- Tony Galento

 

what I've found is that a lot of boxing 'historians' take a source, and run with it. I've read where john l. sullivan was described as a cruel brawler, and that's why he was handled so easily by corbett, but the primary sources on sullivan dispute that, although there were some who called him unscientific. taking eyewitness accounts of someone also has to be taken with a grain of salt, there's millions of boxing fans who will swear that john ruiz sucks, but they have a personal disagreement with his style, and will not acknowledge the fact he has a competent jab, a decent right hand and a lot of heart, who got up and kept fighting against golota and eked out a close win through determination.

ultimately it's helpful to read the historical record and see what those who saw the fighter live says, but always question.