Nino Benvenuti, the great middleweight champion, has passed away at the age of 87. The handsome Italian, who enjoyed success as an actor, also claimed the world junior middleweight championship when that division was in its infancy and could boast the highest accolade – Olympic gold – in the amateur ranks.
Benvenuti, a hall of fame inductee in 1992 who could boast a record of 82-7-1 (35 KOs), is rightly and widely regarded as one of the best fighters in history. His style and strength made him a formidable opponent for all he faced and that list of opposition says it all: Emile Griffith, Dick Tiger, Luis Rodriguez and Carlos Monzon were among the world champions who could vouch for Benvenuti’s brilliance.
In 1960, at the same Rome Olympics that Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) claimed gold, Benvenuti was awarded the Val Barker Trophy as the best boxer in the Games after clinching the top prize in the welterweight tournament.
He entered the professional ranks with a reported 120-0 amateur record and, for several years, it looked like he’d be able to avoid defeat forever. When 55-0, in June 1965, he toppled world junior middleweight champion Sandro Mazzinghi in six rounds. He would beat Don Fullmer in a non-title fight, capture the European title at middleweight, before losing his world belt at 154 to Ki Soo Kim. That defeat in South Korea, which came on points over 15 rounds, was his first defeat in 66 paid bouts.
Believing that he’d been a victim of hometown decision, Benvenuti ventured back up to middleweight where he would dethrone the great Griffith over 15 rounds in Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1967. Griffith would win the return later that year before Benvenuti claimed supremacy in their trilogy bout in 1968.
In mark of the Italian’s robustness, he would lose a non-title 10-round decision, up at 175lbs, to light heavyweight king Dick Tiger in 1969. Benvenuti broke his hand in the opening round of that contest but refused to quit. Upon his return to his more natural landscape, he would knock out former welterweight champion Rodriguez in 10 rounds. By now, however, his best days had gone.
A loss in a non-title affair to the unknown Tom Bethea would be avenged in a middleweight title defense before Benvenuti ran into the brilliant, and rising, Carlos Monzon in November 1970. A knockout loser in 12 rounds, Nino would lose the rematch in three one-sided sessions the following May and announce his retirement immediately afterwards.
Outside of the ring, Benvenuti appeared in two Italian films – Sundance and the Kid (1969) and Mark Shoots First (1975) – before attracting further success in business, TV punditry and he was city counsellor for sport in Trieste. He also retained strong relationships with Griffith and Monzon, arguably his two greatest rivals, when both encountered difficult retirements from boxing.