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Primo Carnera Autograph
Framed 'Ring' Magazine studio Photograph
and cut autograph by former Heavyweight Champion from Italy,
Primo Carnera.
Primo Carnera
£295.00
Primo Carnera was born Oct. 26, 1906, in Sequals, Italy.
He grew to 6-6, 260 pounds, which won the nickname "The
Ambling Alp" from sportswriters. While touring Europe
as a "strong man" and wrestler with a small circus,
Carnera was discovered by a French boxing promoter, Leon
See, and he fought for two years in Europe, mostly in Paris
and London. In 18 bouts, he lost only once, on a foul, and
he won 12 by KO.
Carnera came to the U. S. in 1930 and won 17 consecutive
fights, 16 of them by KO. However, he came under mob control
and it's likely that many of these fights were fixed. He
suffered his first U. S. loss, a 10-round decision, to Jimmy
Maloney in Boston on October 7, 1930. But Carnera kept fighting,
winning most of the time, usually by KO. On June 29, 1933,
Carnera met Jack Sharkey in Long Island City for the world
heavyweight championship. He won it by knocking Sharkey
out with an uppercut in the 6th round. Afterdefending his
title twice, with 15-round decisions over Paulino Uzcudun
and Tommy Loughran, Carnera came up against Max Baer on
June 14, 1934. Baer knocked Carnera down 12 times before
winning on a TKO in the 11th round. The syndicate that had
handled Carnera up to now--and taken most of the money for
his fights--abandoned him after that loss.
He continued boxing sporadically through 1937. Joe Louis
KOed him in the 6th round on June 25, 1935 (that was 2 years
before Louis won the heavyweight title) and Leroy Haynes
knocked him out twice in 1936. Carnera then returned to
Europe and had two fights, a win and a loss, in 1937. He
went back to his native Italy and joined an anti-Fascist
resistance group. Captured by Mussolini's state police,
Carnera spent most of World War II in a forced-labor camp.
After the war, he tried boxing again, winning his first
two fights by KO before losing three in a row. He returned
to the U. S. in 1947 and became a professional wrestler.
He also became something of a hero, because his anti-Fascist
activities were widely publicized, along with his early
victimization by the mob. As a pro wrestler, Carnera made
a fair amount of money, much more than he'd ever made as
a boxer. He became a U. S. citizen, but he returned to his
native city in Italy in 1967 and died there on June 29.
Budd Schulberg's excellent novel, The Harder They Fall,
was based on Carnera's career. A movie version of the book,
starring Humphrey Bogart and Rod Steiger, with appearances
by Max Baer and Jersey Joe Walcott, was released in 1956.
