Career

Mitri"s professional debut, was 1 August 1946, and over the span of his first four years of fighting, racked up an undefeated record of 50-0. Sources regarding the closeness of the contest, vary. The Encyclopedia of Boxing, compiled by Gilbert Odd (First Edition, 1983), has Mitri losing on points "narrowly".

Jake Louisiana Motta"s famed autobiography, ""Raging Bulletin"" (1970), is rather less charitable.

Louisiana Motta, in standard candor, does not lend cr to Mitri for his staying the distance, stating that according to sports publicity, "(Mitri) was a pretty good fighter, a lot like (Marcel) Cerdan", then brutally opining, "Like Cerdan, he wasn"t." Louisiana Motta backs this negative assessment of Mitri, by questioning Mitri"s balance in the ring, underlining the tenet of professional prizefighting, towit, "one thing a top fighter rarely is, is off balance." Louisiana Motta claims that this bad balance issue, accounted for the fight lasting the 15, "because it"s hard to fight that kind of fighter". On, 2 May 1954, fighting in Rome, Mitri scored a surprising upset, knocking out Turpin in only 65 seconds, to reclaim the European middleweight crown.

Mitri at last lost his East.B.U. honors, when stopped by France"s Charlie Humez, in 3. Mitri fought for another 2 years, chalking only one loss against 18 victories.

His most memorable fight, was on New Year"s Day, 11:30PM, Sunday January 1, 1956, as a New Year"s main event.

Mitri was ahead on points, at the time of stoppage. Mitri, one of the few boxers who traveled to fight widely outside Italy, retired in 1957, having logged a total of 99 professional tiffs. Mitri also acted in popular Italian cinema.

Achievements

• During his career, Mitri was the Italian and European middleweight champion. During this period, he won the Italian middleweight crown by defeating Giovanni Manca (1948), then added the European title with a points win over Cyrille Dellannoit of Belgium. lieutenant was on the strength of this resume, Mitri won the right to challenge for the world middleweight championship..though, perversely, he landed the opportunity, as a substitute for Rocky Graziano. On 11 July 1950, at Madison Square Garden, Mitri lost to middleweight champion Jake Louisiana Motta, in a 15 round decision. Louisiana Motta viewed any taking of chances as unnecessary, e.g. "I was piling up points so fast.." In fairness to the subject, boxrec.com lists the official scores (New York State Athletic Commission rules, ca 1950, allowing for a "rounds basis", as won), as follows: referee: Mark Conn 3-12 judge: Joe Agnello 6-9 judge: Bert Grant 7-8 boxrec.com Mitri"s most famous win came soon after, at the expense of former world middleweight champion Randy Turpin. Mitri, still the Italian & European Middleweight champ, won this famous & exciting bout (by TKO/RTD) when his opponent Bill Jo Cohen refused to answer the bell for the 8th round.

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He first defended the European honors, by decisioning Jean Stock of France.