Primo Carnera

How do you know that the sportswriters were honest? It is no secret that most of the New York beat writers were on Tex Rickard's payroll during the Dempsey era. These were largely the same guys. Frankly, I wonder if they demanded to be in on the the Carnera take, and when the mob guys told them to get lost, they trashed Carnera in revenge.

 

Loughran perhaps avoided getting hit. You seem to be criticizing Carnera for being big, an unfair criticism against a heavyweight. Carnera ko'd far bigger men than Loughran--Victoria Campolo, Jose Santa, and Ray Impellitiere, and Tommy survived to the final bell against most of the better heavyweights of the day.

 

Here is a ringside report on the Peterson fight from The Ring, March, 1930, by Ed Sullivan:

"Despite his trememdous bulk and girth, Carnera is as fast in his movements as a huge cat. Those size 16 feet glide in and out with the soft tread of a panther.
Whether or not Peterson had any thought of fight was unimportant. Carnera swept out of his corner and was on top ot the Chicagoan before Big Boy knew what had overwhelmed him.
Carnera is a straight puncher, avoiding the round-house swing of the novice for the deadly short, straight blow.
It is in clinches that his terrific strength is most deadly. Tearing his arms loose by sheer power, he flails that right hand back and forth in a clubbing uppercut that sprawled Peterson on the floor as though he had been ejected from a cannon.
Leo P Flynn and Dan Morgan, two canny veterans, watched him and were eloquent. 'He's the next world's champion," said Flynn."

 

Carnera tends to get tainted by the general atmosphere of acusations around him. The crucial questions that few who buy into this ask are-

1. Exactly which of his fights are fixed and how dose it effect his legacy if they were?

2. What is the primary evidence for him having benefited from fixed fights?

3. Are there other key fighters of the period against who similar acusations could be leveled?

 

Again, for me it all comes down to the footage. I too grew up reading the same slanders and innuendos about Carnera, but that cartoon wasn't what I was seeing in the ring.

I don't deny that Carnera was the beneficiary of some set-ups, but he's hardly unique in that regard, and it's unfortunate that this one damning fact has robbed a good man of the small measure of respect and credibility he honestly earned in the ring.

 

What I've read is that after Tunney retired, and especially because Dempsey was no longer a force in boxing, the sport was in trouble. There were no marquee stars. When Schmeling won the title on a foul, the manly art was viewed by many as less than manly. Germans made fun of Schmeling for winning the fight with his family jewels. Americans were upset because the title was taken from their country by a fighter they felt looked for a way out. When Jack Sharkey won the title, he wasn't a thrilling champion, and the fighter was close (some say Schmeling won it, but I haven't seen the fight so I can't say for sure).

Primo Carnera was thought to be something that would restore the reputation of the heavyweight, a giant hulking creature who at least looked meanacing. There were many stakeholders in the manufacture of the Carnera express, so money was thrown around and managers and promoters were intimidated. I have read that so many of Carnera's fights were fixed that it is hard to know (outside of the Baer and Louis fights) when his fights were on the up and up.

I have some of his fights and his skills are okay. But he would not, in my opinion, be champion of the world if not for a lot of outside help. I don't however think that Sharkey threw the fight with Carnera, as some people claim. Sharkey falls back from an uppercut, then is push back by a left, and then is knocked out with a titanic uppercut. I think this punch was real. But Carnera being in a position to fight for the title is the result of many arrangements. That's what I am arguing. That's my opinion anyway.

 

But that is just the point where people are being inconsistent.

Everybody here seems to agree that the Sharkey fight was on the level and so were the key fights that established Carnera as a challenger for the title.

If that is the case then he did win the title without outside help. Perid.

 

Sharkey certainly floored Carnera with an ill intentioned hook early in their first bout, and Primo came off the deck to go the distance. No referee ever counted ten over da Preem in 104 matches spanning 18 years. He had some heart, and a modicum of competence. A dive might be staged, but that doesn't explain away the fine decision wins he had over Uzcudun (2X), Levinsky (2X), Maloney (with a cracked rib no less!) and Loughran. The quality of his conditioning, mobility, and the ability to deploy his jab effectively are on display for all to see. (The equally sized Buddy Baer did not exhibit a jab of Carnera's quality. Primo used his reach very well.)

 

I don't know about that, UWE, as some of the prefight quotes in the immediate days leading up to the fight from Baer's own people (and others) might suggest that he wasn't nearly in the best of shape entering ther Carnera fight, although by his physical appearance he may have looked the part;


"The newspapermen are friends of mine and if they ask me a question, they are entitled to the truth. Max isn't ready, and that's all there is to that. The boy's not right. He needs plenty of work. I doubt he can be made ready for the fight." - said Jack Dempsey less than a week before the fight

"Baer's timing is way off. I'd rather have him at his peak when he faces Carnera. He doesn't fear the Italian man mountain, but I agree with Dempsey that he needs plenty more hard work. He might get himself into shape the next four days, but I doubt it." - said Baer's manager, Ancil Hoffman less than a week before the fight, and that statement was issued when Hoffman had tried to get the fight postponed to a later date because of the feeling around his camp in Asbury Park that Baer wasn't in shape for the fight

"On what Baer showed in his burlesque workout yesterday in his training camp, on what my eyes tell me today on looking the man over, he is not physically fit for his match now, nor would he be after ten days training." - said New York Commissioner Bill Brown (who would have cancelled the fight based on his perception of Baer's conditioning if within his power to do so), one week before the fight

Baer's trainer, Mike Cantwell also expressed concern over Baer's preparation and conditioning/stamina for the fight, as did a number of press writers who saw Baer up at his camp;

"There must be something radically wrong with the condition of Max Baer." - wrote Edward Van Every of the New York Sun

"The trouble with Max is that he is trying to do in three weeks the work that called for three months' diligent application after the way he had been conducting himself since he defeated Max Schmeling last summer." - wrote Harry Smith of the San Francisco Chronicle


Just a few quotes from some of those closest to him and from others, but enough to hint that Baer may not have been in "magnificent" or "corking" shape for that fight with Carnera, although he was obviously in good enough shape to get the job done on that night.