Gianni Minà, the memory of Francesco Damiani and Patrizio Oliva: “When he introduced us to the myth Muhammad Ali”

“I had won the European amateur championship in Tampere and Gianni had invited me to the Rai studios. I was with Claudia, who would later become my wife. He was the first to understand that we were engaged and he was very sensitive, he told me to take her to the studio with me ”. Francesco Damiani in 1981 he was starting to make his way into boxing, and it didn’t take Gianni Minà long to understand that that giant from Romagna had several arguments. “But the real surprise was when I entered a room and found us Muhammad Ali with Veronica Porsche, his second wife. I was so blown away that I couldn’t say anything, but I shook his hand. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.”

Patrizio Oliva and those dark glasses

It was more ‘loose’ Patrick Olive, who even showed off his singing skills. “Successes in the Blitz broadcast. I had fought the night before, with no title on the line. The highlight was to be a match of Nino LaRocca, but his opponent didn’t show up and I accepted to save the meeting. Easy victory despite having a messy hand, but I had taken a tough shot. Eye swollen, I had to show up in the studio with a pair of black glasses “.

Welcome and Ali, two legends together

As with Damiani, Gianni Minà also surprised Oliva. And this time double: “In the studio there were both Muhammad Ali and Nino Welcome. Suddenly finding myself in front of my two absolute idols, the beacons of my career, fainting”. An emotion for which, after so many years, Oliva thanks Gianni Minà again: “He was a very down-to-earth person, he went to interview the greats of the earth and made you feel at ease”. To such an extent that Oliva, who in his second life is demonstrating uncommon acting skills – is very successful the theatrical show ‘Patrizio vs Oliva’ in which he plays himself He also began to sing. “There was a band in the studio, and I was the soloist. But with Gianni everything was simple, he gave serenity”.

Gianni Minà witnesses great events, such as a night in Kingston

Muhammad Ali was the leitmotif of Gianni Minà’s love for boxing. Discounted, one might say, for someone who was never a prisoner of 16 strings. But for Minà there was not only the face with the gentle features of the myth. There were too many ‘Faces full of fists’, title of a series of fourteen unforgettable episodes aired in the 80s. With those stories Minà as well as the usual one of boxing enthusiasts, also captured the attention of the audience that had little to do with boxing. Always beyond the simple fact of sport, as in one Jamaican night in Kingston. Joe Frazierwho had won the first of three epic fights with Ali, was literally devastated by a boy from Texas named George Forman. Rai did not broadcast the match live, sometimes (not always) it happened that the sleep of Italians was ‘protected’ so as not to have work repercussions.

But the event was planetary (it is no coincidence that it is still being talked about 50 years later) and Gianni Minà was there, testifying it at ringside. To chat with Angel Dundee, Ali’s manager, with his Calabrian emigrant accent. To talk with Robert Sargent Shriver, Democratic candidate for vice president in 1972. He was there for George Foreman, in that interweaving of politics and society that boxing never missed at the time. Finally in George Foreman’s locker room, with that question. “Are you ready for a match with Muhammad Ali?” They would meet in Kinshasa less than two years later in arguably the most famous match in boxing history.