IS HE A REAL FIGHTER?

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4447, 3 May 1930, Page 4

IS HE A REAL FIGHTER?

PRIMO CARNERA’S career. ARRIVAL IX HEW YORK. REAPING A HARVEST. Since the New Year, Primo Carnera has earned over £25,000 .for eleven lights in America. On top of that lie lias signed a £30,000 contract to appear us Hercules in a Him. Will nil he first reached New York, American writers welcomed him with gusto. Ilis enormous bulk and huge feet soon became a prime topic of hilarious news writing. One or two critics, however, struck p; serious note. They discerned possibilities with the giant ami one writer recalled lliai. such champions as .Jeffries, Willard and Dempsey were not taken seriously at first. This is how one writer humorously described Camera's arrival:

[Signor Camera and his St. Bernard “dogs,” or amazingly pedal extremities, reached here with the liner, or vice versa, after a voyage in which the huge vessel showed a menacing list to the port, or C'arnora, side of the ship. But the boat landed, and its officers heaved huge sighs of relief as Camera stepped off at the Fourteenth Street dock. Followed closely by Camera himself, the biggest, feet in the world, following the formula of the storied seven-league boots, proceeded to the Hotel Piccadilly, in the Times Square district. Hushed groups of Luen, women and children viewed the spectacle with hypnotised stares. In the parade uptown, lo! Camera's feet led all the rest. To see them was to skuyo them, or be crowded against the wall. Camera, chaperoned by his faithful feet, finally was loaded into the second room of his hotel. There some of his various managers and associates proclaimed certain statistics about the “Big Fellow,” as they call him. In round numbers, Camera, is six feet, ten inches tall, weighs 287 in lighting trim, and about 300 mow, carries a uinepoimd bamboo cane, wears a No. 21 collar, a No. 18 shoe, and plays chess with lire-hydrauts. He was burn in the suburbs of Venice, ami his lirxl income came when as a lad he rented out his feel as gondola models.

He is 23 years old, but was ollicially exempted from the usual military service of Italy because army experts figured apprehensively that feeding him and providing him with special uniforms and shoes would cost the army far more than such a huge target would be worth. Among those present when Carrera docked with the Berengaria was Gene Tunney, former heavyweight champion, who with his own eyes saw Camera wedge his feet into the normally spacious lobby of the Savoy Hotel, in London, and who told sports writers on his recent return here that the two biggest things he had encountered in Ins l(i months’ European trip were Camera’s ..feet, or “canal boats,” as he called them.

But by. the time Primo actually got in a ring with his lirsl opponent, Big Boy Peterson, he had shrunk somewhat. He was only six feet, six inches, or six feet nine inches rail. Still there was some diversity of opinion on this point. And Lie fought at 2<i!)A pounds. But that, is plenty big enough, according to a World story by Ned Brown, who called I lie tight an example of the mountain coming to Mahomet and engulfing him. How Priuio tights is dismissed by Mr. Skene in tile. Herald Tribune: —

While Peterson, in the role of the condemned man, calmly awaited his fate, the eager Camera did an elephantine tap dance with iiis faithful St., Bernard "dogs.” When the lirst and last round otlieially started, the “cUiiLe.st.ants” began sparring near mid-ring. Camera slowly shoved out his left bunch of bunanas, or hand, and the glove tiually made contact with Peterson’s head. Peterson promptly sprawled in the resin, but was up at a count of two.

After a fairly decent interval, Camera, put forward his right ham, and Peterson caught it neatly on the jaw and went back to the canvas for a count of eight. He came on apparently groggy, and bleeding from Hie nose. An enormous bunch of leather surrounding Carnera's lel'l hand pushed him over again for a count of four. It seemed only fair and sporting, at Ibis juncture, that Camera should be awarded the knoeking-do\vn-Pe-terson game on the basis of “three strikes, you’re out.’’ But Peterson got up again, just for lack, and ran mto a right to the chin that sent him down on his hands and knees. He became erect just after the count of ten. Referee Donovan mercifully stepped between the two “contestants” and called it a night. Camera gleefully left the “buttle Held," perhaps Lo go out somewhere to get some real exercise. Peterson’s seconds swarmed into the ring and picked up their waterwings and their Peterson. They were wringing them both out as the big crowd began tiling out of the main tent.