Boxer Giovanni Parisi, a former Olympic and world champion, was killed in a car accident in northern Italy on March 25th.
The 41-year-old Parisi died when his car struck a van head on while driving on a highway outside of the town of Voghera, where he lived, police said. The cause of the accident is still under investigation according to Italian police official Alessandro Casanova.
Parisi won the gold medal in the featherweight division at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
He was the WBO lightweight champion from 1992 to ‘94. However, when he stepped up in weight to light welterweight, he lost a unanimous decision to Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez for the WBC crown in 1995. He did manage to win the WBO version of the title in 1996 and held onto it for two years while defending it five times.
Parisi suffered a knockout against Daniel santos of Puerto Rico while fighting for the WBO welterweight title in 2000, then boxed only three more times before his last reported bout in 2006, which was a majority decision loss for the European welterweight title against Frederic Klose of France.
Parisi finished his professional career with a record of 41-5-1 and 29 KOs.
”He was in a league of his own,” Italian boxing great Nino Benvenuti told Italy’s SKY TV. ”He was very precise, very technically well-prepared, sometimes he just needed to touch his opponents … so they had watch to out for a surprise punch.”
The 41-year-old Parisi died when his car struck a van head on while driving on a highway outside of the town of Voghera, where he lived, police said. The cause of the accident is still under investigation according to Italian police official Alessandro Casanova.
Parisi won the gold medal in the featherweight division at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
He was the WBO lightweight champion from 1992 to ‘94. However, when he stepped up in weight to light welterweight, he lost a unanimous decision to Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez for the WBC crown in 1995. He did manage to win the WBO version of the title in 1996 and held onto it for two years while defending it five times.
Parisi suffered a knockout against Daniel santos of Puerto Rico while fighting for the WBO welterweight title in 2000, then boxed only three more times before his last reported bout in 2006, which was a majority decision loss for the European welterweight title against Frederic Klose of France.
Parisi finished his professional career with a record of 41-5-1 and 29 KOs.
”He was in a league of his own,” Italian boxing great Nino Benvenuti told Italy’s SKY TV. ”He was very precise, very technically well-prepared, sometimes he just needed to touch his opponents … so they had watch to out for a surprise punch.”
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