By Jim Amato
He may very well be one of the most underrated champions of the glorious 70’s. He won an astounding 70 of 73 battles. He held the 140 pound title for nearly four years and relinquished it. He never lost his belt in the ring. He was a 5’5″ southpaw from Italy named Bruno Arcari.
Amazingly he was stopped in his first professional fight in 1964. He would then win ten straight before being halted again. He would never lose another fight ! In 1966 he proved he was a legitimate contender when he beat former lightweight king Joe Brown.In 1967 he followed that up beating the always tough Angel Robinson Garcia. In 1968 he won the European junior welterweight title by halting the respected Johann Orsolics.
In 1970 he won the WBC junior welterweight title with a decision over Pedro Adigue. Over nearly four year period,this champion defeated the likes of Bunny Grant,Rene Roque,Raymundo Dias,Joao Henrique,Enrique Jana,Domingo Barrera Corpas,”Have Mercy Mr. Percy” Pugh,Chris Fernandez,Joergen Hansen,Robert Gallios and Antonio Hernandez.
He would give up his title without being defeated. He would move up to welterweight hoping for a shot at the great Jose Napoles and his welterweight title.He would defeat the likes of quality fighters like Doc McClendon,Lawrence Hafey,the extremely talented Harold Weston.A one round kayo of Gaetan Hart.A fifth round stoppage of the dangerous David Love and a draw with future junior middleweight champion Rocky Mattioli.
He would win his last three fights and then retire in 1978. Why is this champion so overlooked ?
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
