Was Carnera at his best when he defended against Uzcudun?

It's not just about this thread.

You can't have missed the fact, that some people claim that every super heavyweight before the 1970s was an unskilled oaf, and then a new generation of "big heavyweights with skills" emerged.

That is the notion that is being put on trial here.

 

I take it that by "physically unimpressive" you mean that he was only an even 200 pounds. He certainly looks fit to me: [url]https://www.iogiocopulito.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/paulino.jpg[/url]

 

Obviously the descriptor "impressive" is being employed in a relative sense. Relative to whom, you may pretend to wonder?
Hint: not Benny Leonard.

 

Do you find the footage impressive? If so, relative to what?

 

Yes. Relative to the footage of Vitali, I find it impressive with quite a bit of comfortable space to spare.

 

Respectfully Uz was 34 years old, a 5' 10" plodder who lost title fight to Primo in Italy .. that's his prime ?

 

Yup. It seems so set in stone with some people that no amount of new film or research can change it. There are no exceptions to the rule. There was a cut off point where all of sudden we had a load of “big men with skills” pirouetting all over the place with blazing combinations, muscles like you wouldn’t believe, six packs, power that nobody who came before could ever hope to cope with...

 

I guess that's fair. Vitali certainly doesn't look particularly impressive in the footage that Reznick provided.

 

To be complete, I should add that he was probably stunned and exhausted, and one could find much more flattering footage without looking far.

 

So who were the top ten and what were there best performances ?

 

ATG top tens are usually a personal thing. All of us entitled to our own opinions. Among Superheavyweight sized men, strictly Carnera sized men, Lennox Lewis was the best. After that there were effective Superheavyweights. Varying abilities but all effective at what they did. Some more fluent. Some less so. But still Equally good. All great in their own right. most were comparable to Willard and Carnera though. Because they were as good.

 

SORRY Rez we will never agree on Carnera. I used to box at petronellis gym in Brockton...if I showed Carnera footage to goody years ago he would have laughed and pointed out how clumsy slow and uncoordinated primo was. I love your Marciano stuff though!