Max Baer Cinderella Man villain was totally the opposite of Steve Bierko’s  portrayal of Baer as a villainous man killer.  The following videos show some of Max Baers fights, plus a few that show the enormous appeal of the man.

At heart Max Baer was a handsome fun oving comedian with the charisma of a movie star.

Which is exactly what he became out of the ring, performing in nearly 20 movies.   There are over a dozen videos of Max Baer here. Some of you might ask, “Why would I put so many boxing videos out there, especially of Max Baer?

Perhaps it’s because I was once a boxer myself.

I never went even to the Golden Gloves, but I fought enough both in and out of the ring to feel the exhilaration of victory and accomplishment.  Perhaps it’s because all my life I’ve viewed boxing as the greatest sport ever.   Which it is.

There’s nothing else quite like it.  It pits not only one man against another, but the fighter against himself.  The fighter must be able to overcome fatigue that courses throughout his entire body.   He must be in complete control of his mind at all times, especially when his mind keeps telling him to quit.  The prize fighter must train his body relentlessly so that he is totally fit.  He must be willing to endure both fear and pain.  And he must be able to fight all out for ten and sometimes even fifteen rounds.  He has to be both strong and fast.

In the videos to come, you will see what happens to very large men

who are not gifted with speed or skill in the videos to come starting with  the one on this page where Max Baer destroys Primo Carnera for the heavyweight championship.  Later you will see what happened to the six foot seven 245-pound Jess Willard when he lost the world championship to a hungry 187-pound Jack Dempsey.   You will also see the fight in which Billy Conn, a slender Light Heavyweight at 175 pounds nearly defeated the 200-pound Joe Louis, one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.  It is my intention on this site not only to put together in one place a large assortment of some of the memorable fights ever.  But to provide a sense of the great champions themselves both in and out of the ring.  It is nothing less than to bring these great boxers back to life here in the Fun House.

This first video is of Max Baer, a man who could have become the most memorable fighter ever, if only he had taken his fighting more seriously.

Covered here is the real story behind Killer Baer, the man who was vilified in the movie, “Cinderella Man”.   In the movie, Baer is portrayed as a heartless fighter who’s killed two men in the ring.  As you will see in the video, Baer, actually did inflict enough punishment on his opponent to lead to the man’s death the following day.  The difference is the real Max Baer was haunted by the accidental killing which likely cost him the single minded drive to destroy his opponents most true champions possess.

The first video of Max Baers fights is his world championship bout  against Primo Carnera.

At six foot six and weighing in for his fights as much as 275 pounds Carnera was a giant

in a world when the average male was only five foot six inches tall. Obviously such a giant among men could enjoy enormous appeal as a fighter.   So the story goes that Carnera became a creature of organized crime, which carefully nurtured his career.  Eventually Carnera became world champion after a History of beating up on unskilled boxers that were reputedly hand picked by the mob.  Then there were the more skilled boxers Carnera dispatched who had taken dives for their mobster bosses.  Eventually Carnera was forced to fight a high quality fighter.  That fighter was Max Baer, and you can see what happens to Carnera when he has to fight a real fighter in the following video.

Max Baer’s family was horrified to see how Ron Howard depicted Max Baer in the “Cinderella Man”.

Max Baer would later star in The Prizefighter and the Lady, a film, that is closely based on the career of Primo Carnera.

Keep in mind that this 1933 film actually preceded the championship fight between Baer and Carnera.  One year later in 1934, the Primo Carnera-Max Baer bout is for real, but this time, Baer slaughters the inept Carnera.  Which makes it one of the most interesting of Max Baers fights.

The film features performances from the real Jack Dempsey as well as Primo Carnera.

Max Baer in the “Prize Fighter and the Lady” also has Jack Dempsey in the movie.

Max Baer training.  If you think that boxing in the ring is easy, just try to go a single three-minute round with someone with gloves on.  My step grandfather, who taught me how to box, used to train as an amateur fighter on the speed bag and heavy bag then he’d spar a few rounds with a friend, and after that the pair would jog 18 miles from Staunton, Illinois to Litchfield to complete their training session.  

This second of Max Baer’s fights is of his match against Max Schmeling in 1933.

Schmeling had been crowned world champion in 1930 after suffering from a low blow from the reigning world champion Jack Sharkey.    Sharkey would win the title back from Schmeling in 1932 due to a controversial split decision.  Future world champion, Gene Tunney, would claim that Schmeling was the better man and had been robbed.

Above is Mar Baer vs Max Schmelling 6-8-1933

And this is Max Baer telling the press about his chances in his upcoming fight with James Braddock.  This is the same fight that’s recently been popularized in the movie, “Cinderella Man“.

So take Max Baer’s measure in these two short film clips and ask yourselves, 

“Is this the same Max Baer, we saw Craig Bierko play in Cinderella Man?” 

This is a good trailer of for the movie, “Cinderella Man”.  Although it has just a few seconds of Steve Bierko’s wonderful performance as Max Baer, I wish it had more.  Although I felt Ron Howard’s portrayal of Max Baer was a total injustice to Max Baer, his family and his legacy, I still feel that Bierko was wonderful playing the villain.  

Max Baer’s Fights

 

The last fight is against Joe Louis.

Unfortunately for Baer, Joe Louis was after Muhammad Ali the finest heavyweight champion of all.  In my opinion.

 

Max Baer was in ten movies. Including  The Harder They Fall.  It’s 1956, almost twenty years since Baer’s fought Schmeling and Louis.  And Baer’s acting alongside Humphrey Bogart and Rod Steiger, two of the finest actors in the business.  I tried to put up a 7 1/2-minute segment of this film after gathering bits and pieces of the original film, putting it into my video editing program and figured since I had only very short clips, I could get around the copyright infringement issues, but this was not to be.

I was immediately flagged by You Tube as in only minutes.

 This is a great film to watch, however, as it mirrors both Max Baer’s career and Primo Carnera’s.

But in this film, Max Baer plays the bad guy, who’s killed a man in the ring while the Carnera part is played by Mike Lane.  It is Humphrey Bogart’s last film.  An older and much more mature Max Baer shows solid acting credentials in this film.  Also appearing in the movie is Jersey Joe Walcott, who won the Heavyweight title in 1951.

This set the stage for the much later movie, “Cinderella Man” depicting Max Baer as an arrogant villain.