Baer, Carnera and a certain know-it-all

[Cap]

I just watched a clip of some of the Baer-Carnera fight narrated by a certain New York know-it-all. He's dead now so I won't mention his name, but some of the stuff he said made me gag. One gem was "Every time Baer and Carnera went down and it must've been half a dozen times, Baer would always shout, "Last one up's a sissy!" Considering the situation and Baer's penchant for comedic taunts this sounds a tad redundant even for him. If you've watched the fight you'll be puzzled by our narrator's description of it as a one-sided massacre. I'm pretty sure any fair-minded judge would've had Carnera ahead going into the 10th round. Baer, at times, looked like a rank amateur with his wild windmill right-hands. If I had been in Carnera's corner I would've told him to keep his left hand up and he would've blocked every one of Baer's desperate-looking overhand bombs. It seemed like no one ever told Da Preem he was allowed to take an 8-count.

So much for the cigar-chomping Great Story-Teller. He never let the facts get in the way of a story.

[BoxBuzz]

Cap....love ya like a brotha from anotha motha.

But if you think Carnera was ahead going into the 10th.....

Like Joe Pesci said to the witness in the movie.. My Brother Vinnie..."it's time for thicker glasses".

If you just count rounds alone, I suppose you could make a case for close to an even split. But the first round was a 10-7, the second round was a 10-8
and if all you do is give Max the 8th round at 10-9 Max is ahead. Give Carnera a few rounds while Max is fighting the bigger opponent in the fight (namely his pants appearing to be too loose, and constantly being attended to by Max) and 1 or 2 even or going either way......No way is Carnera "ahead" at the gitgo of round 10.

[Cap]

Cap....love ya like a brotha from anotha motha.

But if you think Carnera was ahead going into the 10th.....

Like Joe Pesci said to the witness in the movie.. My Brother Vinnie..."it's time for thicker glasses".

If you just count rounds alone, I suppose you could make a case for close to an even split. But the first round was a 10-7, the second round was a 10-8
and if all you do is give Max the 8th round at 10-9 Max is ahead. Give Carnera a few rounds while Max is fighting the bigger opponent in the fight (namely his pants appearing to be too loose, and constantly being attended to by Max) and 1 or 2 even or going either way......No way is Carnera "ahead" at the gitgo of round 10.

They didn't use the 10-point system back then.

[Caractacus]

I just watched a clip of some of the Baer-Carnera fight narrated by a certain New York know-it-all. He's dead now so I won't mention his name, but some of the stuff he said made me gag. One gem was "Every time Baer and Carnera went down and it must've been half a dozen times, Baer would always shout, "Last one up's a sissy!" Considering the situation and Baer's penchant for comedic taunts this sounds a tad redundant even for him. If you've watched the fight you'll be puzzled by our narrator's description of it as a one-sided massacre. I'm pretty sure any fair-minded judge would've had Carnera ahead going into the 10th round. Baer, at times, looked like a rank amateur with his wild windmill right-hands. If I had been in Carnera's corner I would've told him to keep his left hand up and he would've blocked every one of Baer's desperate-looking overhand bombs. It seemed like no one ever told Da Preem he was allowed to take an 8-count.

So much for the cigar-chomping Great Story-Teller. He never let the facts get in the way of a story.

Carnera chiped a bone in his ankle after the first fall too.

[HomicideHenry]

Alot of people tend to forget back then it was a "round system", whoever had the better "round" got the nod.... and in all fairness to Primo he was alot more competitive than people thought in that fight with Baer. Knockdowns necessarily didn't mean anything in those days, it was whoever was dictating the action for MOST of the round that mattered. I do happen to feel bad for Carnera, because after the fight there were hecklers who claimed that Carnera took a dive to Baer, which is quite an irony as most people have this picture that Carnera's career was built on fighters taking dives to him, yet in this case the man mountain was accused of laying down to Madcap Maxie. Sadly, if the beating wasn't bad enough, the aftermath was worse as Carnera never received a single dime from the fight as (apparently) a woman won a suit in court (via alienation of affections) that Carnera had promised the woman that she would be his wife within a year's time and he never made good on that promise.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=U ... 8420&hl=en

[BoxBuzz]

Cap....love ya like a brotha from anotha motha.

But if you think Carnera was ahead going into the 10th.....

Like Joe Pesci said to the witness in the movie.. My Brother Vinnie..."it's time for thicker glasses".

If you just count rounds alone, I suppose you could make a case for close to an even split. But the first round was a 10-7, the second round was a 10-8
and if all you do is give Max the 8th round at 10-9 Max is ahead. Give Carnera a few rounds while Max is fighting the bigger opponent in the fight (namely his pants appearing to be too loose, and constantly being attended to by Max) and 1 or 2 even or going either way......No way is Carnera "ahead" at the gitgo of round 10.

They didn't use the 10-point system back then.

I do know that...AND I'm speaking on a pragmatic basis. Sorry I didn't make myself clear...but I thought by USING the point system you would understand my point. I think a fight like that is a great example of why the point system makes sense. To imagine that Carnera was somehow on a par with Baer by the 10th round is sort of goofy thinking. But yes....Max could have knocked him down 100 times in rounds 1, 3, 7, 9....and as long as Primo could fight the other rounds in an ever so slight way as to manage a slight edge, I guess you could say that Primo was even going into the 10th.

But.....what purpose does it serve? Max was giving the big guy a genuine shellacking.

If you want to have some "fun with judging" maybe we should award some points to Max's trunks for being so distracting. So let's say that Max won 4 rounds, Primo won 2 rounds, and Max's trunks won 3 rounds. So really Primo and Max's trunks combined were actually ahead going into the 10th.

But the big guy was still getting a pretty solid shelling. Despite it being 2 against 1.

[Cap]

Under the Rounds system if Carnera outboxes Baer for two minutes then gets knocked down by Baer in the third minute, Carnera wins the round. The Italian was the better boxer but he refused to take a count when he should have and he failed to block Baer's wild haymakers when he could have. In the end Carnera lost a fight he could have won against a second-rate clown who would go on to throw away the title in his first defence.

[BoxBuzz]

Under the Rounds system if Carnera outboxes Baer for two minutes then gets knocked down by Baer in the third minute, Carnera wins the round. The Italian was the better boxer but he refused to take a count when he should have and he failed to block Baer's wild haymakers when he could have. In the end Carnera lost a fight he could have won against a second-rate clown who would go on to throw away the title in his first defence.

Failing to block haymakers does not a good boxer make. Carnera was a third class clown, placing him in a permanent disadvantage against any second class clown.

[Bricks]

Cap....love ya like a brotha from anotha motha.

But if you think Carnera was ahead going into the 10th.....

Like Joe Pesci said to the witness in the movie.. My Brother Vinnie..."it's time for thicker glasses".

If you just count rounds alone, I suppose you could make a case for close to an even split. But the first round was a 10-7, the second round was a 10-8
and if all you do is give Max the 8th round at 10-9 Max is ahead. Give Carnera a few rounds while Max is fighting the bigger opponent in the fight (namely his pants appearing to be too loose, and constantly being attended to by Max) and 1 or 2 even or going either way......No way is Carnera "ahead" at the gitgo of round 10.

My cousin vinnie is one of my favourite movies