Veteran Dulio Loi of Italy regained the world junior welterweight boxing championship by outpointing Eddie Perkins of Chicago over 15 rounds.
The pint-sized, 33 year old Italian, thus avenged his decision defeat at the hands of the 25 year old American in this same city last September.
It was their third meeting and evened the series for the 140-pound division title. They drew in their first fight in Milan in October 1961.
After losing the crown to Perkins three months ago, Loi said at first he was through with the junior welterweights because he found it too difficult to make the weight limit. He said then he intended to campaign only as a welterweight and defend his European welterweight (147 pounds) crown.
Loi then decided to make one more try for the 140-pound title. It paid off.
The title fight was a fast, spirited and close battle all the way. At the finish, referee Georges Goudre of France, the sole official, proclaimed Loi the winner without any hesitation after the final bell.
For a man who has struggled to make the division limit in the past, Loi was surprisingly light. He weighed 137 and 3/4 pounds to Perkins 138 and 3/4.
(The Palm Beach Post)
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An extraordinarily busy and durable fighter, Duilio Loi
reigned in Europe at lightweight and welterweight for eight
years from 1954, and in 1961 added the, then recently
resurrected, world light-welterweight title to his
collection, with a points victory over the formidable Puerto
Rican Carlos Ortiz. Loi fought 129 contests, losing only
three, in each case getting his revenge in rematches. He was
never knocked down.
Loi possessed great ringcraft but he was also tough and
relentlessly aggressive, and many other top boxers at his
weight were happy to give him a wide berth. He fought one of
his European lightweight title defences only two days after
he had been involved in a car crash.
Born in 1929 in Trieste, where he grew up during the war,
Duilio Loi started boxing in Genoa, where he went to school
for a period. He turned professional as a lightweight in
1948. By 1951 he had won the Italian title from Gianni
Uboldi and went on to defend it many times. A first tilt at
the European lightweight title held by Jorgen Johansen, in
Copenhagen in August 1952, was not successful, but in
February 1954 he had his revenge against the classy Dane
when he took his title from him in Milan on points over 15
rounds.
He was to defend it numerous times over the next few years,
notably against the Spaniard Jos? Hernandez, with whom he
managed a draw - and retained his title - in Milan in May
1956 notwithstanding that he had been badly bruised in a car
accident two days earlier. His second defence against
Hernandez in December that year was a more emphatic affair,
a points victory over 15 rounds. The hectic nature of his
schedule is indicated by the fact that in between these two
defences Loi fought no fewer than eight non-title bouts. But
a shot at the world lightweight championship eluded him.
Then, in April 1959, Loi stepped up a weight to go in quest
of the newly crowned European welterweight champion Emilio
Marconi, in Milan, and relieved him of his title over 15
rounds. He was to continue to defend this title against
all-comers, even after he had won the world light-welter
crown, re-established in 1959 after having been in abeyance
since the war.
This he first tried to wrest from Ortiz in San Francisco on
June 16, 1960. He lost the decision on points over 15
rounds, but even Ortiz's large army of fans realised that it
had been a desperately close thing. At a rematch in Milan
that September, it was a different story with no one at
ringside in any doubt that Loi was the winner over 15
rounds. A third contest between this superbly matched pair
was another victory for Loi, and he even had Ortiz down in
the 6th round.
The only other man to beat him, the tough American Eddie
Perkins, who was also nine years his junior, was now to
enter the world light-welter lists. He fought a draw with
Loi in Milan in May 1961, and went back in September 1962 to
outpoint him over 15 rounds and take his title, despite the
fact that he had been put down in the 1st and 14th rounds.
But, as with Johansen and Ortiz, the last word was to be
Loi's. On December 15, 1962, again in Milan, he won his
title back from Perkins over 15 rounds. Immediately after
the bout he announced his retirement.
He left the ring both as world light-welter and European
welterweight champion, having defended the latter title
against the very tough Sardinian Fortunato Manca, in
Cagliari in May that year. It was a satisfactory end to a
highly meritorious career. Indeed, with such a record, Loi's
name deserves to be more familiar; undoubtedly greater
exposure in the US would have made it so.
His induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in
2005 was a fitting acknowledgement of his, until then,
underrated achievements. By that time Loi was suffering from
Alzheimer's and his daughter, Bonaria, travelled to the US
to accept the award on his behalf.
Duilio Loi, boxer, was born on April 19, 1929. He died on
January 20, 2008, aged 78
(The Times Obituary)
