As darkness fell over New York on New Year’s Eve 1929, Primo Carnera walked down the gangway of the SS Berengaria, stepped onto the quayside and wondered what the imminent decade held for him. Despite his fellow passengers on the transatlantic crossing including Sergei Rachmaninoff and Sergei Prokofiev, by the time the ship docked it was the Italian boxer who was by far the most eagerly anticipated of the new arrivals.

It wasn’t so much Carnera’s prowess in the ring that had caught the attention of the American press. He’d not been fighting long enough for that, and his opponents in Europe hadn’t exactly been stellar names. What tantalised reporters instead were his physical dimensions. The size of his reputation was dictated by, well, his size. It had been that way for as long as he could remember. He’d hoped it might be different here but a glance at the newspapers suggested otherwise.