PRIMO THE STORY OF MAN MOUNTAIN

He was a phenomenon. The most colossal boxer ever to win the world heavy-weight championship, thereby becoming one of the only three Europeans and the first Italian fighter ever to win the crown. They called him 'Man Mountain', and also a fraud far the way he was promoted to contender status by a series of 'fixed' bouts and media ballyhoo. A 1956 Hollywood film, The Harder They Fall starting Humphrey Bogart and Rod Steiger, was a thinly disguised story of a giant peasant ruthlessly exploited and abandoned to poverty. The true life story of Primo Carnera: prizefighter; lover; popular idol; tragic victim and, finally, international star of the wrestling ring is far more fascinating. It is told here, for the first time, in a full-length biography, by novelist, biographer, and one-time boxing critic, Frederic Mullally.

Published in Britain in 1991, this fluent biography tells the story of one of the shoddiest events in the shoddy history of boxing: the history of Primo Carnera (1906-1967), the 6'7", 264-lb. Italian who was heavyweight champion of the world from 1933 to 1934. A gentle, decent and trusting man, virtually illiterate, he was picked up while working as a circus strong man by French entrepreneur Leon See, who dreamed of making him the greatest pugilist of all time. To give his fighter confidence, he arranged for Carnera to win 12 of his first 14 fights (he won the other two honestly), which was sufficient to give him a reputation in Europe. Moving to the U.S. in 1930, the Italian was taken over by a group of gangsters headed by Owney Madden, who arranged to have his protege win his first 14 fights here. Eventually Carnera got a title fight and won, only to be badly beaten by Max Baer a year later. His boxing career left him with only a few thousand dollars, and in 1946 he began to earn big money as a wrestler and an occasional bit player in Hollywood. He died at 61 in 1967. Britisher Mullally (The Silver Salver) has told the sordid tale so well that on occasion, it almost calls for tears. There are about a dozen rather conventional photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.