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Carnera was a surprisingly apt pupil. He soon learned how to defend himself with a clumsy left jab, how to move his immense feet with astonishing legerity. He won a bout against W. L. ("Young") Stribling by being fouled; Stribling won their second fight the same way but afterward told friends he would never fight Monster Carnera again. Since his arrival in the U. S., backed by a group of prosperous but shady entrepreneurs, Carnera's career has been less glorious than fantastic. His first opponents—Big Boy Peterson, Elzear Rioux, Cowboy Owens— were known to be incompetent but their feeble opposition to Carnera suggested that they had been bribed to lose. Suspicion concerning the Monster's abilities became almost universal when another adversary, Bombo Chevalier, stated that one of his own seconds had threatened to kill him unless he lost to Carnera. Against the huge, lazy, amiable Negro George Godfrey (249 lb.), he won on a foul. But only one of 33 U. S. opponents has defeated Monster Carnera—fat, slovenly Jimmy Maloney, whom Sharkey beat five years ago. In a return fight, at Miami last March, Carnera managed to outpoint Maloney.
Prizefight experts have universally derided Carnera. They have coined names— "Fiddle-Feet," "Satchel-Feet," "Ambling Alp," "White Whale," "Carnivorous Carnera," "Snaggle-tooth"—to make his heroic stature seem deformed. This worries not at all his tiny, suave, hook-nosed Anglo-French manager, Leon Sze who, in Carnera's presence, has been observed bending his knees to make Carnera seem even bigger. To show his scorn for Carnera's detractors, M. See uses a motto on his stationery: "The dogs bark: the caravan passes." Like a large proportion of the sporting public, he believes, whether prizefight critics believe it or not, that Carnera cannot fail to win the world's heavyweight championship as soon as he is given a chance to fight for it, and that he may win the world's wrestling championship after that.