Primo Carnera: Heavyweight Champion or Mob Creature?

Primo Carnera was born in Sequals, a small Italian town north of Venice, on October 26, 1906. He grew up training to be a carpenter, moving to France at the age of 14. Even in his teens, however, Carnera was already developing the substantial physique that would go on to earn him international fame, so by the age of 16 he had joined the circus as a strongman. It was there he was noticed by French boxing promoters, and by 18 he had switched professions and become a professional pugilist.

Carnera's strong point as a boxer was also his biggest selling point: his size. In an era when a good heavyweight was about 6 foot and 200 lbs., Carnera was almost 6' 6" tall and weighed around 265 lbs. He was a big, well-muscled man, and had a sideshow appeal akin to today's Nikolai Vaulev. Like Vaulev, he was very strong, but was ponderous and his main advantages in the ring were long reach, height, and heavy, thudding shots.

Drawing crowds on the basis of his big, buff body, Carnera racked up a 14-1 record before meeting his first serious heavyweight contender in 1929, Young Stirbling. Stirbling took the bigger, but poorly schooled Italian to school, scoring with hard body shots and making Carnera look foolish. Then Stirbling hit Carnera below the belt, resulting in a Disqualification when Carnera could not continue. This was the first fight that some dubbed as "fixed," but was it? Probably not. Stirbling was relying heavily on body shots, after all, so that he crunched Carnera's family jewels is easy to believe. Even if Carnera were faking, which is a big if, it does not take a dirty referee to issue a DQ under those circumstances. A foul is a foul is a foul.

The two met again in Paris roughly three weeks later. Stirbling was once again outclassing the inexperienced and unskilled Italian. As Stirbling turned to return to his corner after the 7th, Carnera hit him on the back of the head. This time is was Carnera who was disqualified for flagrant fouling. Strangely, some historians say this fight was fixed too, even though it was Carnera who lost it by DQ.

However, the Stirbling bouts had attracted the attention of American boxing promoters, and soon Carnera was on his way to the States. It was here that his management came under the influence of Owney Madden, a British-born gangster who was involved in bootlegging, boxing promotions, as well as running the famed Cotton Club.

Only in America
Carnera's boxing career in America was almost immediately dogged by allegations of corruption. His second bout in the U.S. was in Chicago in January 1930 against Elzear Rioux. Rioux was knocked down six times in the 1st Round, with many in the audience swearing they never saw Carnera land a single clean punch. Worse is that Chicago was one of the most mobbed-up cities in the country at the time. The Illinois Boxing Commission let Carnera go, but fined Rioux and revoked his boxing license. It is clear that Rioux was a tomato can who did a very poor job of taking a dive.

The big Italian met his next contender in June 1930 the form of George Godfrey, an African-American who was almost as big as Carnera and on a knockout streak. Godfrey was winning the fight when he was disqualified on a foul. In this case, the eye-witness reports are damning: the referee saved Carnera. Finally, in October 1930 Carnera was outboxed by a journeyman named Jim Maloney, and either because the Boston venue was beyond the reach of Owney Madden or because Madden had gotten lazy, Carnera lost the decision.

In November, Carnera returned to Europe for a match in Barcelona with Basque fighter Paulino Uzcudun. Ringside observers say Carnera won only 2 Rounds, but he won the decision anyway. Then came a 1931 rematch with Maloney, which Carnera actually won fair and square. Perhaps chastened by the earlier loss, Carnera was clearly starting to learn something about boxing.

In Contention
By October 1931, Carnera was fighting Jack Sharkey, a future heavyweight champion and a man who had beaten Carnera's old rival Stirbling. Although he was smaller, Sharkey was a tough character who had gone 7 Rounds with Jack Dempsey. Sharkey knocked him down in the 4th and cleanly outpointed him, but Carnera was in the fight right up to the very end. He impressed many with his fortitude and improved ability. Carnera followed up on that momentum by meeting and defeating contender Kingfish Levinsky a month later.

Carnera continued to fight and mostly win, drawing record-breaking crowds on the strength of his freakish size. In 1932 he knocked out the South African Heavyweight Champion, but then dropped two points losses before bouncing back to beat an undefeated Art Lansky (a fighter who would appear as a Braddock opponent in The Cinderella Man). Then he won a rematch with Kingfish Levinsky.

Carnera's momentum was briefly interrupted by the unfortunate death of Earnie Schaaf, who had recently been savagely knocked out by contender Max Baer and should not have had medical clearance to continue fighting. Carnera's blows compounded the damage from the Baer beating, and caused an inter-cranial hemorrhage that resulted in Schaaf's death four days after the fight.

Championship
Jack Sharkey had previously announced that he would give a title shot to the winner of the Carnera vs. Schaaf bout. It has been rumored that this was arranged by Owney Madden, but it is just as likely that Sharkey was avoiding a fight with the incredibly dangerous puncher Max Baer. It is also rumored that Sharkey took a dive on orders from Madden, but keep in mind that Sharkey was 31 and had a lot of boxing miles on his body. In their June 1933 rematch, Sharkey made a lethargic, flat-footed effort that made him an easy target for the lumbering Italian, and Carnera gave him a bad beating, hitting with a right uppercut in the 6th that literally lifted Sharkey from the canvas. Sharkey denied taking a dive to his dying day, and certainly no sane man would deliberately catch an uppercut like the one that felled him.

Now the World Heavyweight Champion, Carnera made the first defense of his title in Rome, in a rematch with Basque fighter Paulino Uzcudun. Fascist strongman Benito Mussolini was among those in attendance. That Carnera won on points is not disputed. His second defense was in Florida, against light heavyweight great Tommy Loughran. Loughran outboxed the plodding Carnera for several rounds, but Carnera fought a smart, yet rough and dirty fight that made the most of his size. He repeatedly stepped on Loughran's feet, pinning him down. Eventually Loughran broke a toe, further limiting his mobility. Carnera probably should have had points deducted, but as it was he won a gritty decision.

In June 1934, Carnera defended his title for the third time against the feared funnyman of boxing, Max Baer. Baer's wild, aggressive assault felled Carnera eleven times en route to an 11th Round knockout. Carnera displayed great courage and stamina, getting up again and again just to be nailed by the hardest hitter in the game at that time. Even so, the big Italian was utterly demolished by the Clown Prince of Boxing.

Former Champion
Carnera started a comeback with a tour of South America, but in June 1936 met a rising, 19-0 Joe Louis. The backdrop for this fight was the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, so 62,000 people filled Yankee Stadium to watch another of what would be many racially-charged heavyweight bouts in the mid-1930s. Louis was even more dangerous than Baer, and reduced Carnera to utter helplessness in 6 Rounds. The fight ended with a crushing knockout.

Carnera boxed occasionally after that, but was never again a serious world contender. In 1946 he turned to wrestling, where he once again became a star. He died in 1967 in his native Italy.

Legacy
Unfortunately, Carnera's name is bound up with shadowy mob dealings and allegations of corruption. Certainly there were Carnera bouts where officials were tampered with, and more where the opponent was either chosen because they were cream-puffs or were paid to take a dive. But how just how many allegations of fight fixing were true?

In many ways, Carnera is the antecedent to today's Nikolai Valuev. Yes, Valuev undoubtedly robbed an aging Evander Holyfield in a bout in Switzerland in 2008. The political machinations that awarded him with the WBA title for a second time - a title he did not even win in the ring! - were pure farce. However, it is beyond doubt that Valuev beat guys like John Ruiz and Sergei Lyakhovich fair and square (if barely beat them).

In many ways, it seems likely that Carnera's career is more tarnished than it deserves. After all, the aforementioned Holyfield robbed Lennox Lewis in their first bout (with the help of Don King), and no one thinks of him as a product of dirty judging. Carnera was an Italian boxer in the 1930s, the decade of the gangster. Viewed through that lens, conspiracy theories regarding the mafia come easy. Yet upon examining the facts, it becomes clear that Primo Carnera won plenty of real fights, and he did it the same way Valuev did: on the basis of sheer size, reach and strength.

Sources: boxrec.com; cyberboxingzone.com; Joe Louis: The Great Black Hope.