Primo Carnera, nicknamed the Ambling Alp, was an Italian professional boxer
and the World Heavyweight Champion from June 29, 1933, to June 14, 1934.
Personal life Primo Carnera was born in Sequals, then
in the Province of Udine, now in the Province of Pordenone, Friuli-Venezia
Giulia. On March 13, 1939, Carnera married
Giuseppina Cavazzi. In 1953 they became American citizens.
They settled in Los Angeles, where Carnera opened a restaurant and a liquor
store. They had two children, one of whom became a medical doctor.
Carnera died in 1967 in his native town of a combination of liver disease and
complications from diabetes. Biography
Carnera was touted in America as being 6' 7" tall and thus the tallest
heavyweight in history, but he was actually 6′ 5½″ tall. He fought at as
much as 275 pounds,. Until December 19, 2005, when the 7' 1", 147 kg Nikolay
Valuev won the WBA title, Jess Willard who stood 6' 6½" was the tallest
champion in boxing history. At a time when the average height in
Italy was approximately 5 ft 5 in and in the United States 5 ft 7 in, Carnera was
considered a giant. Though an inch shorter than Willard, he was around 40
lb heavier and was the heaviest champion before Valuev in boxing history.
He enjoyed a sizable reach advantage over most rivals, and when seen on fight
footage, he seems like a towering giant compared to many heavyweights of his
era, who were usually at least 60 pounds lighter and 7 inches shorter. One
publicity release about him read in part: "For breakfast, Primo has a quart
of orange juice, two quarts of milk, nineteen pieces of toast, fourteen eggs,
a loaf of bread and half a pound of Virginia ham." His size earned him the
nickname "The Ambling Alp." Time Magazine called him "The Monster".
= Boxing career= September 12, 1928 was the date of
Carnera's first professional fight, against Leon Sebilo, in Paris. Carnera
won by knockout in round two. He won his first six bouts, then lost to Franz
Diener by disqualification in round one at Leipzig. Then, he won seven more
bouts in a row before meeting Young Stribling. He and Stribling exchanged
disqualification wins, Carnera winning the first in four rounds, and Stribling
winning the rematch in round seven. In Carnera's next bout he avenged his
defeat to Diener with a knockout in round six.
In 1930, he moved to the United States, where he toured extensively, winning his
first seventeen bouts there by knockout. George Godfrey broke the streak in
Philadelphia by disqualification in the fifth round. Carnera lost a decision to
Jim Maloney in Boston to finish 1930. In 1932, Carnera faced the tallest
heavyweight in history up to that point, Santa Camarão, a 6' 9" Portuguese
fighter who was 31⁄2" taller. Carnera won the fight in a 6th-round decision
The year 1933 was one of the most important in Carnera's life. On February
10, he knocked out Ernie Schaaf in thirteen rounds in New York City. Schaaf
died four days later. For his next fight, Carnera faced the world
heavyweight champion Jack Sharkey. The championship date was June 29, at the
Madison Square Garden Bowl in Queens, New York. Carnera became world champion
by knocking out Sharkey in round six. The fight came under the eye of fans and
sportswriters alike when the uppercut that KO'd Sharkey was believed not to
have landed. Rumours of a mob fix were brought up causing some to maintain
Sharkey threw the fight. Sharkey himself would later confess to having taken a
dive. He retained the title against Paulino
Uzcudun and Tommy Loughran, both by decision in 15 rounds, but in his next
fight on June 14, 1934 against Max Baer, Carnera was knocked down 11 times and
was defeated in 11 rounds. After that, Carnera won his next four
fights, three of them as part of a South American tour that took him to Brazil,
Argentina and Uruguay, as well as two exhibitions in the southern American
continent. But then, in his next fight of importance, on June 25, 1935, he was
knocked out in six rounds by Joe Louis, who would become world heavyweight
champion in 1937. For the next two and a half years, he
had a rather ordinary record, winning five and losing three of eight total
fights. But in 1938, Carnera, a diabetic, had to have a kidney removed,
which forced him into retirement by 1944.
Carnera's record was 89 wins and 14 losses. His 72 wins by knockout made him
a member of the exclusive club of boxers that won 50 or more bouts by knockout.
= Acting career= Carnera appeared in a short film in
1931. During his tenure as world champion he played a fictional version
of himself in the 1933 film The Prizefighter and the Lady starring Max
Baer and Myrna Loy. Here he plays the heavyweight champion who barely holds
onto his title with a draw decision after a furious fight with Baer. The
film, ironically, was made just the year before Carnera fought Baer for real, in
a bout that was as wild as the film version, but ended with a KO loss for
Carnera. Carnera had a non-speaking bit part in
the 1949 movie Mighty Joe Young. He played himself in the tug-of-war scene
with the giant gorilla. After being pulled by the ape into a pool of water,
Carnera throws a couple of futile punches to Joe's chin.
He also played a bully boy wrestler in Carol Reed's film A Kid for Two
Farthings based around London's Petticoat Lane Market where he has a
match against a local bodybuilder who is getting married to Diana Dors.
Moreover, Primo appeared in at least 10 Italian films between 1939 and 1943, as
well as several in the 1950s, like Prince Valiant, in the role of Sligon.
His last screen role was as the giant Antaeus alongside Steve Reeves in
Hercules Unchained. = Wrestling career=
In 1945 he returned temporarily to boxing and won two fights. But the next
year, after three losses against Luigi Musina his talent for wrestling was
discovered. In 1946, he became a professional wrestler and was
immediately a huge success at the box office. For several years, he was one of
the top draws in wrestling. Carnera continued to be an attraction into the
1960s. Max Baer attended at least one of Carnera's wrestling matches.
Carnera wrestled from 1946 to 1962. He won his debut on August 22, 1946, when
he defeated Tommy O'Toole in California. On October 23, 1946, Carnera won his
41st consecutive wrestling match by defeating Jules Strongbow. On November
19, 1946, Carnera beat Harry Kruskamp to remain undefeated at 65-0-0.
Primo Carnera went 120 straight wrestling matches undefeated before
suffering his first loss to Yvon Robert in Montreal, Canada, on August 20, 1947.
Carnera's greatest victory took place on December 7, 1947 when he defeated former
world heavyweight champion Ed "Strangler" Lewis.
In May 1948, Carnera took a 143-1-1 record against world heavyweight
champion Lou Thesz. Thesz defeated Carnera in a world title defense.
In Ring Magazine, August 1962, page 38, Carnera "flattened" Ox Anderson in a
heavyweight wrestling match in Los Angeles, California.
Carnera's wrestling career came to an end in October 1962. On October 17, he
lost to Jess Ortega in Los Angeles, and on October 25 Carnera lost to The
Destroyer. Consequently, Carnera retired from professional sports.
Accusations According to boxing historian Herbert
Goldman, Carnera was "very much mob controlled." Carnera met his first
serious heavyweight contender, Young Stribling, in 1929, and won when
Stribling fouled him. In a rematch, he fouled Stribling. His 1930 fight against
California club fighter Bombo Chevalier in Emeryville was considered fixed, and
Carnera was banned from fighting in California. His 1930 match against
George Godfrey was controversial, as Godfrey was disqualified in the sixth
round when he was clearly getting the better of Carnera.
Time Magazine, in an October 5, 1931 cover story on Carnera before he won the
heavyweight title, commented on his odd career.
"Since his arrival in the U. S., backed by a group of prosperous but shady
entrepreneurs, Carnera's career has been less glorious than fantastic. His first
opponents—Big Boy Peterson, Elzear Rioux, Cowboy Owens—were known to be
incompetent but their feeble opposition to Carnera suggested that they had been
bribed to lose. Suspicion concerning the Monster's abilities became almost
universal when another adversary, Bombo Chevalier, stated that one of his own
seconds had threatened to kill him unless he lost to Carnera. Against the
huge, lazy, amiable Negro George Godfrey, he won on a foul. But only one
of 33 U. S. opponents has defeated Monster Carnera—fat, slovenly Jimmy
Maloney, whom Sharkey beat five years ago. In a return fight, at Miami last
March, Carnera managed to outpoint Maloney."
Depictions in popular culture = In film=
Requiem for a Heavyweight, Rod Serling's 1956 Emmy Award-winning teleplay for
Playhouse 90 directed by Ralph Nelson, focused on down-and-out former
heavyweight boxer Harlan "Mountain" McClintock. The travails of McClintock,
who was played by Jack Palance, was thought by many boxing fans to resemble
Carnera's life. In his 1933 collection of short stories
entitled "Mulliner Nights," P.G. Wodehouse wrote "He was built on large
lines, and seemed to fill the room to overflowing. In physique he was not
unlike what Primo Carnera would have been if Carnera hadn't stunted his
growth by smoking cigarettes when a boy."
In 1947, fighting aficionado Budd Schulberg wrote his novel, The Harder
They Fall, a story about a giant boxer whose fights are fixed. In 1956 a movie
with the same name, and based on the novel, was released by Columbia
Pictures. A highlight was the appearance of Max Baer, playing a fighter the mob
could not fix and destroying the giant in his first fair fight. Critics drew
parallels with the real-life Baer-Carnera fight two decades before.
In response, Carnera unsuccessfully sued the movie company.
Primo features in the 2005 film Cinderella Man, a film about the life of
fellow boxer James J. Braddock. In 2008 the actor Andrea Iaia played
Carnera in the Italian biographical film Carnera - The Walking Mountain, directed
by Renzo Martinelli. In 2013, Emporio Elaborazioni Meccaniche
named a motorbike, the 1983 BMW R80RT Carnera, in honor of Primo.
= In comics= In 1953 an Italian comic book series
sporting a fictional version of Primo Carnera was also translated into German.
A facsimile version was published in 2010.
= In music= The Yeasayer song, "Ambling Alp," from
their 2010 album Odd Blood references Carnera by his nickname in the title and
second verse. Both Carnera and German boxer Max Schmeling are referenced for
their bouts with American Joe Louis. = In mathematics=
The googolplex is jokingly said to have been defined as a one followed by a very
large but very specific number of zeros in order to ensure that Carnera would
not be considered a better mathematician that Albert Einstein, Implying that
Carnera would defeat Einstein in an endurance contest.
Professional boxing record Championships and accomplishments
= Boxing= International Boxing Union
IBU Heavyweight Championship National Boxing Association
NBA World Heavyweight Championship New York State Athletic Commission
NYSAC World Heavyweight Championship = Professional wrestling=
NWA Hollywood Wrestling NWA International Television Tag Team
Championship – with Bobo Brazil NWA San Francisco
NWA World Tag Team Championship – with Sandor Szabo
See also List of heavyweight boxing champions
References External links
Datos y curiosidades sobre Primo Carnera en espanol.
Carnera: The Walking Mountain at the Internet Movie Database
Primo Carnera Photos Professional boxing record for Primo
Carnera from BoxRec Primo Carnera at Find a Grave