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Carnera came out for the eleventh round still groggy and dazed. His huge sad face was covered with blood. He lurched on a twisted ankle. When he reached the centre of the ring, Baer smashed him in the face. A cowardly fighter would have dropped to the floor and stayed there. A wise one would have rested until the referee counted nine. Camera heaved himself up at the count of two, floundered toward his opponent like an enormous hurt animal. This time Baer hit him three hard cracks before he went sprawling again. The courage which made Carnera get up once more gave dignity to the end of an otherwise brutal comedy. To the referee he mumbled something which he later denied was a request to stop the fight. The referee stepped in front of him, raised Baer's hand in victory. Max Baer was born in Omaha in 1909. His 6-ft. father was a Jew of Alsatian stock. His 200-lb. mother was Scotch-Irish. By the time Max was old enough to work after school. Jacob Baer had advanced from butchering cattle for Swift & Co. to running a small ranch and meat-packing plant of his own in Livermore, Calif. Timid Max Baer went home from school by a three-mile detour because his schoolmates had threatened to thrash him. His timidity was replaced by exaggerated confidence after his first fight. Max Baer's first manager, Hamilton Lorimer, matched him with an Indian named Chief Cariboo whom Baer knocked out in two rounds. After 19 easy victories, Baer fought Frankie Campbell in San Francisco, knocked him out in the fifth round. Campbell failed to recover consciousness, died the next day. Baer was suspended for a year. When he returned to the ring, he had a new manager, Ancil Hoffman, and the reputation of being the hardest hitter since Jack Dempsey. After a year in which he lost fights to Ernie Schaaf, Tommy Loughran, Johnny Risko and Paulino Uzcudun he began to justify that reputation. In a return fight with Ernie Schaaf, he gave his opponent a terrific drubbing, knocked him unconscious for three hours. A year ago Baer won his right to fight Carnera by thrashing Max Schmeling.
Outside the ring, Max Baer played the part of a merry Andrew. During the year of his suspension, he bought two 16-cylinder Cadillacs, soon lacked money to run them. In Reno, he met and married a Dorothy Dunbar with whom he has since quarreled and made up seven times. When he left Reno for New York, he had with him a chauffeur, a valet, a dietitian and a present from Dorothy Dunbar, Emily Post's Book of Etiquette, which he read when he was supposed to be doing roadwork. Like Carnera, Baer has been sued by a waitress, one Olive Beck, whose claim of $250,000 for breach of promise he settled for $5,500. Last year he was divorced from Dorothy Dunbar. After defeating Max Schmeling, Max Baer played in vaudeville, was master of ceremonies in a nightclub, performed on the radio, acted in MGM's The Prizefighter and the Lady in which he engaged in a bout with Carnera. The bathrobe he wore into the ring last week was the one he wore in that cinema; on its back was the name of the hero, Steve Morgan.