Sport: Monster Retires

Primo Carnera, onetime side-show freak and carnival wrestler, beat Jack Sharkey in six rounds and became heavyweight champion of the world in 1933. Fighting all over Europe and the U. S., Carnera, a bewildered, grinning hulk, probably earned a million dollars. His managers got most of it. He threw most of his away, then disappeared from U. S. sport pages after Negro Leroy Haynes knocked him out twice. Two months ago word came from France that Primo Carnera had been knocked out by a sparring partner while training for a comeback.

Last week, almost penniless, onetime Champion Carnera was discovered sprawled out on two beds in a Budapest hospital, wistfully admiring a silk bathrobe he used to wear in the ring. He had suffered a kidney hemorrhage and was definitely through with fighting. One of his few prudent acts while in the money will save him from the fuddled penury of most prizefighters’ declining years. He had given his mother a little hotel in Venice. The injured and obsolete giant plans to go there and retire. He is 31.