Giovanni “Nino” Benvenuti won the gold medal in the welterweight class at the 1960 Rome Olympics where he edged out the young American light heavyweight Cassius Clay to win the Val Barker Trophy emblematic of the best boxer at the Games. As a pro, he won world titles at 154 and 160. Overall, he participated in 12 world title fights, winning eight. Three of those fights were against his great rival and ultimately close friend Emile Griffith. Their first and third meetings were at Madison Square Gardens (plural). The middle fight was at Shea Stadium in Queens, home of the Mets.

The first boxer born and raised in Italy to be elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame (class of 1992), Nino Benvenuti passed away today, May 20, 2025, in Rome at age 87. This was a big news story in Italy where the former prizefighter, the son of a fishmonger, was more than a famous sports personality; he was a national treasure.

Benvenuti won the WBC 154-pound title in 1965 in Milan with a sixth-round stoppage of countryman Sandro Mazzinghi and lost it the following year on a disputed split decision to a Korean fighter in Seoul. Heading into his first encounter with Griffith, his U.S. debut, this was Nino’s only defeat in 72 professional fights after an amateur career in which he was purportedly 119-1.

Benvenuti-Griffith I, contested on April 17, 1967, was a doozy of a fight in which both combatants were on the deck within the first four rounds. When the smoke cleared, Benvenuti was more marked-up but was a clear winner on the cards. “The stylish Italian showed a dazzling variety of punches on the way to his decisive upset,” wrote the Associated Press correspondent. The bout would be named the Fight of the Year by The Ring magazine.

Even before the decision was announced, Benvenuti’s partisans, an estimated 500 of whom flew over from Italy, rushed to congratulate their hero, knocking over typewriters in the press section as they stormed the ring. A few wild minutes ensued before the Garden police were able to get the situation under control. In Italy, where one could keep abreast of the match on the radio in the wee hours of the morning, there was jubilation. Newspapers in Rome and in Benvenuti’s hometown of Trieste published special editions. (Benvenuti was actually born in the Adriatic seacoast town of Izola which is now part of Slovenia. He was seven years old when his family settled in nearby Trieste following the Communist takeover of Izola in the aftermath of World War II.)

The rematch five-and-a-half months later was expected to draw 35,000 if the weather was accommodating, which it was not. Pushed back a day by rain, the event, on a damp night with storm clouds in the area, drew 22,000.

Emile Griffith regained the title with a majority decision. It was an uphill battle for Benvenuti when his nose began leaking blood in the opening round. He suffered a cut lip three rounds later and after the match he was hospitalized for a rib injury. Nonetheless, it would be written that many in the cheap seats thought that the decision (the two judges each had it 9-5-1) was rank.

Benvenuti won the rubber match. Contested on March 4, 1968, and paired with a contest between Joe Frazier and Buster Mathis for the New York and Massachusetts versions of the world heavyweight title, Benvenuti-Griffith III was the ice-breaker at the new Madison Square Garden (the fourth iteration of the iconic Manhattan sock palace).

In the ninth round, Benvenuti knocked Griffith down hard with a straight right hand and although Griffith fought back furiously, winning the last two rounds, the knockdown took the steam out of his punches. Take away that knockdown and it would have been another majority decision in favor the challenger, but judge Al Berl, who had it, 7-7-1, favored the Italian 9 to 8 on points, making the verdict unanimous.

Benvenuti made three successful defenses in his second reign as the middleweight king. The second of those, against the Miami-based Cuban Luis Rodriguez, produced one of his finest moments.

Although he was credited with 35 knockouts during his 90-fight pro career, Benvenuti wasn’t a big puncher. But don’t tell that to Luis Rodriguez who was knocked into dreamland with a lethal left hook in the 11^th-round of a fight that Benvenuti was losing. The referee’s 10-count, noted the UPI correspondent, was a mere formality. Heading in, Rodriguez, a future Hall of Famer, had been stopped only once in 103 documented fights.

Four fights later, Benvenuti met his waterloo in the form of the great Argentine boxer (but then little-known outside South America) Carlos Monzon who knocked him out in the twelfth round. The punch, an overhand right, left Benvenuti flat on his back where he was counted out by the West German referee.

Heading into the 12^th, most neutral observers thought that Monzon was in command, but Benvenuti was ahead on two of the cards. This bout, akin to the first Benvenuti-Griffith affair, was another Fight of the Year by The Ring magazine.

There would be a rematch and it would prove to be Nino Benvenuti’s farewell fight. On May 8, 1971, at a soccer field in Monaco, Monzon repeated his triumph, only quicker. The Argentine referee declared Monzon the winner at the 1:05 mark of round three when the towel came in from Benvenuti’s corner after Nino had been knocked down for the second time. Up in a jiff, Benvenuti kicked the towel back but no avail and burst out crying when Monzon had his hand raised.

While he would forever insist that he was never badly hurt and that the referee was incompetent, he conceded that he could no longer stomach the rigors of a training camp and walked away from boxing, leaving the sport with a record of 82-7-1.

Nino Benvenuti (undated photo)

Nino Benvenuti’s popularity owed to more than his ring accomplishments. Dashingly handsome, articulate, quick to smile and always immaculately dressed, he stayed fit and kept his good looks as he aged. It was inevitable that he would dabble as an actor and find work as a TV pundit and pitchman after his fighting days were over. With investments in many spheres (e.g. restaurants, men’s apparel), he was also a successful businessman, something that could be said of hardly any of his former opponents. But he also became known for his altruism. In 1995, he spent several months volunteering at a leper colony in India run by Catholic nuns.

Nino kept in touch with Emile Griffith whose end days were tough before he passed away at a Long Island nursing home. In fact, Benvenuti brought Griffith to Italy to meet his family and made Griffith the godfather of one of his children. But Benvenuti’s life wasn’t untouched by tragedy. It would be written that he was never the same emotionally after one of his sons from his first marriage committed suicide.

“Farewell to Nino Benvenuti, an extraordinary champion and symbol of a proud, courageous Italy capable of getting back up…My emotional thoughts go to his family and to all those that loved him,” wrote Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on her social media platform.

We here at TSS echo those sentiments.

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