All-time great Nino Benvenuti dies
Italian legend was 1960 Olympic gold medalist, undisputed junior middleweight champion, two-time undisputed middleweight champion
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Nino Benvenuti, a 1960 Italian Olympic gold medalist, undisputed junior middleweight champion, two-time undisputed middleweight champion, International Boxing Hall of Famer and one of the greatest European boxers ever, died on Tuesday. He was 87.
The Italian Olympic Committee announced his death. No cause was cited.
Born April 26, 1938 in Iso La D’Istria, Italy (the town is now part of Slovenia), Benvenuti gained fame with his run to gold in the 1960 Rome Olympics, where he not only won the welterweight tournament but was voted winner of the Val Barker Trophy as the best boxer of same Games that also included light heavyweight gold medalist Muhammad Ali, then known as Cassius Clay.
After finishing his amateur career 120-0 (or 119-1, depending on the source), Benvenuti (82-7-1, 35 KOs) embarked on a superb professional career from 1961 to 1971 during which he fought a legendary trilogy with fellow Hall of Famer Emile Griffith and became a beloved figure known for his stylish skills.
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In 1965, Benvenuti knocked out countryman Sandro Mazzinghi in the sixth round before a crowd of some 40,000 in Milan to win the undisputed junior middleweight championship.
He defended the crown twice, including by 15-round decision against Mazzinghi in a 1965 rematch, before traveling to Seoul, South Korea, where Ki-Soo Kim dethroned him by split decision.
Benvenuti then moved up to middleweight, where he had his most famous fights. In April 1967 he traveled to New York, where he traded knockdowns with Griffith and won a unanimous decision to claim the undisputed middleweight title at Madison Square Garden in the Ring magazine fight of the year.
Five months later they met in an immediate rematch, this time at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, and Griffith dropped Benvenuti in the 14th round and won a majority decision to regain the championship.
In March 1968, back at Madison Square Garden, Benvenuti and Griffith met in a rubber match and Benvenuti dropped him in the ninth round and won a unanimous decision to regain the title.
Benvenuti defended the title four times, though he lost twice and drew in nontitle bouts during his reign, including a 10-round decision defeat to Hall of Famer Dick Tiger in 1969.
In November 1970, in Rome, Benvenuti lost the title by 12th-round knockout to Hall of Famer Carlos Monzon in the Ring magazine fight of the year. The loss was Benvenuti’s first in his home country and the first of three consecutive defeats before he retired.
He returned from the loss to Monzon in March 1971 and got knocked down twice in a 10-round majority decision loss to Jose Roberto Chirino and then challenged Monzon for the title in a rematch in May 1971 in Monaco.
Monzon blew Benvenuti away via third-round knockout. Monzon knocked him down in the second round and again in the third before Benvenuti's corner threw in the towel after he got up from the second knockdown.
Benvenuti, who appeared in a few movies and worked as a television pundit in retirement, was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York, in 1992.
Show and tell
Here are two Benvenuti items in my collection — stickers from the 1967 and 1968 Panini multi-sport sets from Italy. PSA has graded only four examples of the 1967 sticker. Mine is the highest graded there is as the only one at 9 with no 10s. PSA has graded six examples of the 1968 sticker. The one in my collection is the only 9. There are also two 10s in the population report.
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Photos: WBC and Associated Press
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Trailing badly against Luis Rodriguez, he delivered a thunderous one punch knockout. Wide World of Sports televised it with Howard Cosell announcing. The place went crazy. I’ll never forget it.
RIP Champ.