Nino Benvenuti

Nino Benvenuti
Nino Benvenuti, 2010
Data
Birth Name	Giovanni Benvenuti
Weight class	medium weight
nationality	Italy
birthday	April 26, 1938
place of birth	Izola
style	Left delivery
size	1.80 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	90
Victories	82
Knockout victories	35
Defeats	7th
draw	1
Profile in the BoxRec database

Giovanni Benvenuti (born April 26, 1938 in Izola ) is a former Italian boxer .

Amateur career

As an amateur, Benvenuti was Italian champion four times in a row from 1956 to 1960. In 1957 he won the European Championship held in Prague , where he a. a. Rolf Caroli , GDR , and Tadeusz Walasek , Poland , beat, like the EM in 1959 in Lucerne in the light middleweight (-71 kg), with victories a. a. via Henryk Dampc , Poland. In 1960 he took part for Italy in the Olympic Games in Rome and won after victories over Jean Josselin , France (5: 0), Kim Ki-Soo , South Korea (5: 0), Schischman Mizew , Bulgaria (5: 0), James Lloyd , United Kingdom (5: 0), and Yuri Radonjak , Soviet Union (4: 1), the gold medal in the welterweight (-67 kg). He was also awarded the Val Barker Cup for his outstanding achievements .

Professional career

He turned pro in 1961 and won his first 65 fights. Against the Nicaraguan Luis Gutierrez, he had to go down for the first time in his career, but still won through a technical knockout in the seventh round.

He fought during his professional career mainly in the middleweight division, but still won the two WBC and WBA half middleweight world championships of his compatriot Sandro Mazzinghi on June 18, 1965 by knockout in the sixth round. In October of that year he became European middleweight champion. Just two months later, he defended the light middleweight title in the rematch against Mazzinghi by winning on points.

In 1966 he lost the first defeat of his career, the controversial light middleweight title on points to the Korean Ki-Soo Kim and then concentrated completely on the middleweight division. On April 17, 1967 he met the WBA and WBC middleweight world champion Emile Griffith and won the title by winning the points. Both Benvenuti and Griffith had to go down during the fight. In the direct rematch he lost five months to Griffith, but was able to prevail again in the third clash in March 1968.

He was then able to defend the title four times, but also lost two light heavyweight fights against former world champion Dick Tiger (n.P.) and Tom Bethea (TKO 8th) during this period .

In his fifth defense of the title, he lost to Carlos Monzón in November 1970 by technical knockout in the twelfth round. Benvenuti also lost the rematch in May 1971 prematurely. After this defeat he ended his career.

The Ring Magazine evaluated him as best Italian boxers of all time. In 1996, Benvenuti was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame .

Outside the ring

Benvenuti tried himself as an actor in 1969; he played in the spaghetti westerns -Komödie sink or swim starring alongside Giuliano Gemma . In 1995 he went to India for some time to work on Mother Teresa's project.

Web links

• Nino Benvenuti in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Nino Benvenuti in the BoxRec database
• Nino Benvenuti in the BoxRec -Encyclopaedia
• Nino Benvenuti in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Modern - Last bout no earlier than 1943 , Nino Benvenuti on the website of the International Boxing Hall of Fame , accessed on February 17, 2014
2. ^ Newspaper report in Corriere of December 2, 1995