Giovanni PARISI

After overpowering Daniel Dumitrescu in the 1988 Olympic featherweight final, Giovanni Parisi soon turned pro. In 1993, grabbed the vacant WBO lightweight title, defending it twice successfully before abandoning it in 1994 to move up to the light welterweight. A shot at the WBC belt in that class failed, but he gained the WBO title in 1996 in a technical knockout over Sammy Fuentes. He defended his title five times, before losing it to Carlos González in 1998. Now marred by injuries, the best years of his career were over. After a failed attempt at the WBO welterweight title in 2000 and an embarrasing defeat in an EBU welterweight title bout, Parisi called it a career. His life was tragically cut short when he was involved in a head-on collision with a truck near his home in Voghera.