Some Questions for Carnera advocates

Owney Madden et al. almost certainly owned a piece of Jimmy Braddock and lots of other fighters. That doesn't mean they fixed fights for them though.
Joe Louis was managed by racketeers too. His co-manager Julian Black was partcularly shady, and John Roxborough was in the numbers racket. Most boxing managers in those days were racketeers, gangsters, or swindlers of some sort. It shouldn't detract from the boxers themselves.

 

Agreed. Most of those guys had a piece of everything. There was no real need to fix anything at the top end.

 

Black and Roxborough were numbers runners, Roxy served time for it, not exactly Public Enemies.

 

Joe Gould and Madden were friends When Madden came out of Sing Sing ,Gould was waiting outside to drive him home.

 

That's right all Carnera's fights were on the up and up. The fight game of the 20,and30's cannot compare for fixed fights and dodgy decisions with the 50's when Carbo,Palermo,Norris,Costello were pulling the strings.

 

Being a big operator in the numbers racket and speakeasies business in South Side Chicago in the 1920s and '30s (as Julian Black was) qualifies as being a rackeeter. This was organized crime, run by serious syndicates with wide criminal interests in the world's most notorious city, requiring muscle.
Roxborough and the Detroit black policy racket at that time was apparently far less tough (relative to Chicago) but Julian Black was part of a very shady world, and known to be tough. Roxborough brought Black in on managing Louis probably partly for that reason.

Public Enemies, no they weren't. Organized racketeers they were.

 

Yes.
Madden had a lot of friends in the boxing world. I'd probably want Madden as a friend too. The man got things done.
Lived to old age and died peacefully in 1965 too, very shrewd man was Owney Madden.

 

Good fighters got frozen out of the loop for sure. You had to take on "partners" to break into the pathway of improvement. I think it's always been that way. The names change, some descriptions are more legitimate but it amounts to the same thing. Today it's called "signing with a new promoter". But it's the same thing.

The difference was probably the rematch thing. Especially among contenders. If two guys were 1-1 with each other it didn't effect their status much whilst they're trying to break into "the loop". So that's where I believe most of the business was done.

Mostly with managers and Promoters in each other's pocket there wasn't really any need to fix that many fights. They only had to own part or most of all the fighters in the loop. You were either in their loop or you wasn't.

 

Black was brought in for his $£$£$.

 

Its b. The people that underrated Carnera are the people on this forum. You probably didn't encounter it because it was rampant before you became a member but a year ago (or maybe less), the only time Carnera was mentioned was when talking **** about a super heavyweight. "That guy makes Carnera look like Joe Louis" or "Fighter x is more of an uncoordinated bum than Carnera ever was" were usually the sort of context that Carnera was ever mentioned in. The main people on here that underrated him were usually the guys who argued that Klitschko and every single other modern superheavyweight (regardless of who it was) would dominate every fighter from the 40s/50s and prior.

Nobody is saying he is an atg but he was for sure a good name to have on a resume.

 

Everybody ran numbers back then.

 

I used to fix fights back in the 30's.
It was hotter than hell down there.

 

Yes for many years there was a double standard going on. It was as if "Carnera like" was a negative slur against someone where as any similar sized novice boxer from this era was seen as good enough to wipe the floor with anyone from the classic era. But gladly that's all changed.

 

How has it changed?
87% still think he was an oaf!

 

Yes, he had money to invest, and was well-connected and a tough operator.