Nino Benvenuti, an Italian boxer who won the welterweight title before an indulgent crowd at the 1960 Rome Olympics, and who, perhaps benefiting from a home-ring advantage, was named the outstanding fighter of those Games over a certain teenage light-heavyweight named Cassius Clay, better known as Muhammad Ali, died on Tuesday in Rome. He was 87.
His death was announced by the Italian Olympic Committee, which did not specify where he died.
Unlike Ali, a three-time world heavyweight champion, Benvenuti never became one of the world’s most recognized and socially relevant figures, but he was considered Italy’s greatest boxer — handsome and possessing elegance and power in the ring — and built his own exceptional career.