Luciano Gonzalez
11/07/2020 6:01 AM
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 11/07/2020 6:01 AM
-Ciao, bambino.
The greeting is accompanied by a gallant smile and a caress on the buttocks.
The man who tips is a celebrity and is the one who everyone went to see in that Roman room.
The man who receives it is, in those parts, a stranger.
The gesture infuriates him.
Tour.
He gives him a withering look.
-
Tano
bastard, after tomorrow I'll kill you
.
That "the day after tomorrow" was November 7, 1970, of which this Saturday is half a century.
The day Carlos Roque Monzón pulverized
Nino Benvenuti
at the Palazzetto dello Sport and became the
fourth world champion
in the rich history of Argentine boxing.
Not even the most fervent activist of optimism could imagine that afternoon with the slap on the buttocks that Monzón would say goodbye to boxing seven years later, still owning that middleweight crown for which he had traveled to the Italian capital.
In fact, very few believed him capable of beating Benvenuti, even though the
Olympic champion in Rome 1960
was already showing some signs of fragility and lack of interest in boxing in those days.
For Monzón, waiting for this chance had been like chewing Giraffe gum.
“I'm getting tired of waiting.
I am Argentine and South American champion, I ran out of rivals and sometimes they make me want to throw everything to hell, "he had acknowledged in April 1970 in an interview in
El Grafico
.
Opportunity eluded him despite its merits.
Six years and 58 fights had passed since his last defeat: against Alberto Massi, in Córdoba.
In that period, he had achieved the national and subcontinental belts of the middleweight, with victories against Jorge Fernández and several victories against foreign rivals that had allowed him to climb the world rankings.
Even so, the boxer born in the La Flecha neighborhood of San Javier and trained by Amílcar Brusa in the gym of the Unión de Santa Fe club (despite the fact that he was a fan of Colón) could not win the favor of the demanding Luna Park public, that she did not have him among her favorites because she considered him an apathetic boxer.
Carlos Monzón had won the Argentine and South American middleweight titles before facing Nino Benvenuti.
In those days, Benvenuti was king in the 160-pound division.
He had shared hegemony in the last five years with
Emile Griffith
, whom he had faced three times: he had snatched the WBA and WBC belts in April 1967 at Madison Square Garden, had returned them five months later at Shea Stadium from Queens and had recovered them in March 1968 again at the Garden.
Since then, he had made three successful defenses and had also co-starred with his friend Giuliano Gemma
"Alive or preferably dead"
, a
western
written and directed by Duccio Tessari in which the fighter played the role of Ted Mulligan, a bandit who aspires to get paid. a lush heritage with his brother Monty, played by Gemma.
Between his steps through the film sets, Benvenuti lost two bouts in which he did not expose his crowns.
The last, in March 1970 against Tom Bethea, whom Monzón had beaten in August 1969 at Luna Park.
That triumph of the American had opened the door for a rematch against the champion, this time for the titles, on May 23, in Umag (Croatia).
Along with his friend Giuliano Gemma, Nino Benvenuti starred in the western "Alive or preferably dead".
“Bethea is tough, but I beat her well.
He just put up with me, he can never beat me.
And that
Tano
put it
upside down.
Let's see if it can hold me.
Brusa already told me how he fights and with that he reaches me ”, warned Monzón, who was waiting for that fight to open a door for him.
Benvenuti knocked out Bethea in eight rounds.
Ten days later, on June 2, 1970, around 10 a.m., a telephone rang at the Banco Español in Santa Fe, where Brusa worked as an orderly.
“I thought it was a request from a boxer of mine to fill out a schedule.
But on the other side of the line was
Tito Lectoure
with a euphoria that had never transpired.
He had the bomb.
Something that for more than two years we had waited with so much anxiety, ”said the coach months later in Goles magazine.
It was the confirmation of the fight against the Italian.
Brusa immediately left his job, took a taxi and went to break the good news to Monzón at his home.
Preparation began almost immediately.
As an advance on the purse he would charge for the fight ($ 16,000), Lectoure paid his boxer a monthly payment of 80,000 pesos at the time so that he could dedicate himself exclusively to his conditioning.
After his last presentation before the title confrontation (he defeated Dominican Santiago Rosa on September 19), Monzón stayed in Buenos Aires: he stayed at the Splendid Bouchard hotel, located opposite Luna Park, and trained at the stadium gym.
Nino Benvenuti trained in Trani for his first fight with Carlos Monzón.
On October 24, the expedition left for Rome.
Monzón, a man of few words, had plenty of confidence.
"They told us that Benvenuti is very dangerous," said the Channel 13 chronicler who interviewed him on the runway at Ezeiza airport, minutes before the departure of Aerolineas Argentinas flight 140.
“For me, it is not dangerous.
I am dangerous for him, because I hit with both hands
”, he retorted.
In the Italian capital, the Sporting hotel, located in the Parioli district, in the northern part of the city, hosted the delegation that included, in addition to Monzón, Lectoure and Brusa, the physical trainer Patricio Russo and the
sparring partners
Juan Alberto Aranda and José Menno, who had also been a
sparring partner
for Benvenuti.
The champion, meanwhile, did almost all his preparation in Trani, a port city located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, in the Puglia region, and only in the days before the duel did he travel the 336 kilometers that separated him from Rome, the city in which he had fought 31 times and had always ended up with his arm raised.
The city where he stroked Monzón's buttocks.
The city that saw him fall.
Carlos Monzón, during a training session in Rome with José Menno, one of his sparring partners.
While the challenger was taller, younger, and had an arm's length advantage, none of this prevented the monarch from being a
clear favorite
to successfully defend his crown for the fifth time in his second reign.
So believed the 12,000 spectators who paid between 4,000 and 40,000 lira (between 6.5 and 65 dollars) to have their place secured at the Palazzetto dello Sport.
However, Monzón had written another script, with a much less happy ending than the one Benvenuti had starred in
"Alive or preferably dead
.
"
A sustained dominance for 11 rounds preceded the definition.
"At halftime, Brusa told me:
'That man is dead, go and knock him out,'
" said the Santa Fe in
"Carlos Monzón, my true story,"
the autobiography he made in 1976 with the assistance of journalist Ernesto Cherquis Bialo.
What happened in the 12th round?
“I let him come so that he could be trusted, I made my waist, I put my right cross on him and with my left I carried him from one corner to another.
In the end, I locked him up, lowered my arms to encourage him to put his hands out, and
put my right in fully
.
When I saw that he fell, I realized that he did not get up any more, ”said the protagonist.
Carlos Monzón tries to avoid a left-footed shot from Nino Benvenuti during the fight in Rome.
The Italian managed to regain the vertical, but the German referee Rudolf Drust took him out of contention.
Immediately the ring was invaded.
Benvenuti, still moved, had to spend several minutes sitting on his stool before leaving the
ring
.
Monzón quickly left for his dressing room and from there, without even bathing, he returned to the Sporting hotel.
"If I could have that night, I would have killed Benvenuti,"
acknowledged the winner.
Six months later, he faced him again, this time at the Louis II stadium in Monaco,
knocking him out in three rounds after knocking him down twice
.
It was the first of 14 successful defenses he made before announcing his retirement, in August 1977. And the Italian's last professional fight.
Now retired, the old rivals forged a solid friendship.
Even Benvenuti visited Monzón in the Junín prison, where the man from Santa Fe served part of his sentence for the femicide of his partner Alicia Muñiz.
HS
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