Camera v. Sharkey

Defending his world's heavyweight championship for the first time, against gargantuan Primo Camera, Jack Sharkey last week made a mistake in the sixth round. Before that Camera, lumbering about the ring in the uncomfortable manner of an elephant on a barrel, had tried to obey his manager's instructions to behave like a boxer. Consequently, Sharkey (201 Ib.) had completely outmaneuvered Carnera (260 Ib.) by jumping or standing on his toes' to reach Camera's chin with left jabs. Thinking that now the time had come to knock Camera down, as he did when they fought each other two years ago, Sharkey scrambled out of his corner, ran across the ring and, after a brief clinch, hit Camera in the stomach as hard as possible. What 40.000 spectators in Long Island City's stadium saw next was an appalling spectacle--the spectacle of a monster in a rage. Camera gave Sharkey a hard push which landed him on the floor near the ropes. Sharkey, humiliated but unconvinced, got up, ran at Camera, brandished his fists. Camera, still too furious to remember anything about ''boxing,'' clubbed his little opponent's head. By now Sharkey was too dazed to change his tactics. He hit Camera once more, this time in the face. Camera gave a loud grunt, lifted his right hand sharply in an eccentric gesture which resembled a badly executed uppercut. It grazed Sharkey's neck, came smacking onto Sharkey's jaw. Sharkey's feet left the floor. He fell face down full length near the ropes, then lay there quivering while Referee Arthur Donovan counted ten. Sharkey's seconds dragged him to his corner, managed to revive him after 50 seconds. Huge Primo Camera, soothed by the knowledge that he was the first Italian heavyweight champion of the world, danced around the ring holding his smallest manager in his arms, drank a bottle of beer in his dressing room, wagged his hideous acromegalic head as he explained to reporters that he had won the fight with a mysterious punch he had been practicing in secret. Much bigger and stronger than his size --6 ft. 6 in.--suggests, Primo Camera has been handicapped since the beginning of his career by two unavoidable circumstances. His managers have uniformly made the mistake of trying to teach him how to box; his opponents have been so terrified by his appearance and so easily cowed by the first tap of his immense paws that most of his early fights have had the appearance of being arranged beforehand. Against adversaries whom he respects, Camera, until last week, invariably erred by controlling his temper. Copybook managers have by no means been Monster Camera's only misfortune. Son of a mosaic worker near Venice, he grew too rapidly, seldom had enough money for the exaggerated quantities of food his stature made essential. After wandering about Europe as a cement worker, a side-show freak, a carnival wrestler, he met monkey-like little Leon See who became his first manager. Manager See matched Camera with Stribling in London, again in Paris, then brought him to the U. S. to acquire experience against third-rate confreres. Last year, after investing $100.000 of Camera's money in worthless gold mine stocks, Manager See transferred his monster to Billy Duffy, Manhattan night club proprietor. Last week. Camera's enjoyment of his victory might have been curtailed by the fact that he received congratulations from a London waitress named Emilia Tersini who won a judgment against him for $14,000 for breach of promise; and the fact that his plea of bankruptcy, shrewdly entered two weeks before the fight, was nonetheless unlikely to leave him free to spend his share of the $200,000 gate receipts.* The news of Camera's victory filled the front pages of Italian newssheets. Meeting in Rome, the International Boxing Federation declared Camera an Italian despite the fact that he once applied for French citizenship. Camera's mother wept when she heard the news. The new champion celebrated his victory by trying to play the concertina in Manhattan's Delmonico Hotel. He planned to go abroad this week. Said he, in patois: 'I've never met Mussolini but ... he sent word that I should visit him after the fight, win, lose or draw. . . ." Last week's was the second spectacular heavyweight fight in a month. By beating Sharkey--who won the championship a year ago by a debatable decision in his bout with Max Schmeling and who had previously been considered a shade the best of a mediocre group of U. S. heavy-weights--Monster Camera last week qualified for a bout with Max Baer, who knocked out Schmeling (TIME, June 19). Onetime champion Jack Dempsey, who, as promoter, has an option on Baer, last week began negotiations with Madison Square Garden Corp. which controls Carnera. for a Camera v. Baer bout to be held next year.

*Net receipts were $160,000. Camera received 10%, Sharkey 421/2 %. Madison Square Garden Corp. -- whose president, William F. Carey, last week resigned and was succeeded by onetime Yale Footballer John Kilpatrick--made a profit of $40,000 of which Mrs. William Randolph Hearst's Milk Fund got 25%. As usual, the Hearst papers earned the Milk Fund's share by giving the fight an enthusiastic ballyhoo. Shrewdest prediction of the result was a drawing by Burris Jenkins Jr., which appeared in the Evening Journal the afternoon of the fight. It prophesied 1) the winner 2) the knockout 3) the punch that produced it (see cut).

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