LA DOLCE VITA
And second, fate – or perhaps something more sinister – intervened, and Benvenuti called this incident “one of the most shameful pages in boxing history.” Following the 13th round, the springs holding the ring ropes suddenly broke, forcing a lengthy timeout. Here is Benvenuti’s version of events: “I dominated Ki Soo Kim, knocking him down during the [14th] round,” he said. “He got up and made it until the end of the round. During the interval, somebody approached the ring and broke one of the columns where the ropes were tied. They needed more than 15 minutes to repair the column. When the [15th] round began, Ki Soo Kim had enough energy to last three more minutes. That was their purpose. Anyway, they couldn’t even get a unanimous decision for their man: One of the judges gave it to me. I never lost to him in the first place! If the match was held anywhere else, I would have got a unanimous decision by a wide margin of points. Unfortunately, we were fighting in Seoul.” With the loss, Benvenuti’s historic winning streak ended, as did his time at 154. Six consecutive wins at
middleweight in Italy earned Benvenuti a chance to win Emile Griffith’s championship. Their April 1967 battle in New York was an instant classic. Both men hit the canvas – Griffith from a right uppercut late in the second, Benvenuti from a right to the ear midway through the fourth – but Benvenuti’s quicker hands, nimbler feet, sharp counterpunching and superior ring generalship earned him the unanimous decision in what was later named The Ring’s Fight of the Year. The victory garnered Benvenuti the cover of The Ring’s September 1967 issue, which asked if he was “Italy’s greatest ever.” It also secured an immediate rematch with Griffith five and a half months later at New York City’s Shea Stadium. A hard hook midway through the first broke Benvenuti’s nose – a nose that had undergone plastic surgery after the first meeting. That, combined with Griffith’s 14th-round knockdown, vaulted the Virgin Islands native to a title-regaining majority decision. Their rubber match on March 4, 1968, was on the first fight card staged at the current Madison Square Garden, and, as one might have expected, the action was
pulsating as Benvenuti consolidated his early lead with a ninth-round knockdown and Griffith staged a furious rally in the final three frames. That rally fell just short, and Benvenuti regained the title by a narrow but unanimous 15-round decision. Benvenuti’s second middleweight title reign featured many more twists and turns: He overcame a seventh- round knockdown before out-pointing Don Fullmer in December 1968, lost a non-title 10-rounder against Dick Tiger five months later, then benefited from a strange seventh-round DQ win over Fraser Scott due to what the referee called butting and Scott labeled as ducking. He produced a come-from- behind, one-punch 11th-round KO over Luis Rodriguez that earned Ring’s 1968 Round of the Year award, then suffered an injury-marred, eighth-round non-title TKO loss to Tom Bethea, only to stop Bethea in eight with the championship on the line. In another non-title bout, he secured a 10th-round TKO win against Doyle Baird in a rematch of their October 1968 draw. All that led to a confrontation with Carlos Monzon, who handed Benvenuti his first-ever defeat on Italian soil with a crushing
12th-round right to the jaw. Fittingly, Monzon-Benvenuti was named The Ring’s 1970 Fight of the Year. Benvenuti’s professional erosion continued with a second straight loss in Italy – a 10-round majority decision against Jose Chirino in March 1971 – and it was completed with a third-round TKO loss to Monzon in the May 1971 rematch staged in Monaco. Benvenuti, now wealthy and professionally fulfilled, announced his retirement and exited the ring with an 82-7-1 (35 KOs)
Benvenuti at war with fellow Hall of Famer Emile Griffith.
record. From there, he enjoyed a successful post-boxing life that included volunteer work in India, commentary for RAI Italia and ownership of a high-end restaurant. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1992. Upon his death, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni called Benvenuti “an extraordinary champion and a symbol of an Italy that is proud, courageous and capable of rising again,” while Giovanni Malago, the president of the Italian National Olympic Committee, praised Benvenuti as “a true role model” for his approachability and kindness. That kindness enabled him to form lasting bonds with the often-brooding Monzon (whom he visited when Monzon was in prison) as well as with the gregarious Griffith, who was named godfather to Benvenuti’s son. He was an early idol of future middleweight
champion Vito Antuofermo and, until May 20, he was boxing’s oldest surviving world champion. Although Benvenuti suffered his share of losses and disappointments, they are far outweighed by his successes in and out of the ring as well as by the high esteem he earned as a human being. His impact on boxing will far outlive his time on earth, and that in itself is as good as it gets. Lee Groves is a boxing writer and historian based in Friendly, West Virginia. He is the author of Tales from the Vault: A Celebration of 100 Boxing Closet Classics and the co-author of Muhammad Ali: By the Numbers. You can contact him via email at l.groves@frontier.com or send him a message via Facebook and X (@leegrovesboxing).
Benvenuti moonlighted as an actor during his ring career.
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