DENNIE MANCINI was one of the last true all-rounders on the safe side of the ropes in British professional boxing. Trainer, second, “cut man”, manager, matchmaker and promoter, he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the sport’s history and was much in demand as a quick-thinking corner man in major championships right across Europe, often when no British boxer was involved.
Anthony Luigi Mancini was born on August 27, 1933, in Stoke Newington, London. His family originally came from a small village near Monte Cassino, Italy. His father, Dinnie, and his grandfather, Giuseppe, had such splendid physiques from practising sport that on their arrival in England they were to pose for a sculptor who was decorating Buckingham Palace with classical statuary under the direction of Sir Aston Webb around 1913.
The immigrant family were enthusiastic about football and cricket as well as boxing and later ran sport-oriented pubs and restaurants in London. As far back as 1926, Dennie Mancini’s uncle Alf had boxed a 20-round draw with the outstanding Len Harvey from Cornwall who later was to win British professional titles at middleweight, light-heavy and heavyweight. Dennie’s cousin Tony Mancini was a British welterweight title challenger in the 1960s.
Dennie Mancini’s first sight of professional boxing came when his family, much against the odds, gained a licence to promote Sunday-afternoon boxing at Stoke Newington’s Alexander Theatre. Watching wide-eyed as a schoolboy and listening to seconds and managers, including Uncle Alf, he enjoyed the skills of boxers like Ernie Roderick who in London in 1945 out-pointed the younger, stronger Vince Hawkins for the British middleweight title with a vital last-round knockdown somehow scored with a painfully injured right hand. Uncle Alf would not let his nephew watch the return fight because he knew the veteran Roderick could not repeat his victory.
Such useful memories came flooding back when Mancini, surprised and pleased that his 70th birthday was listed last year in The Times, agreed to have a series of informal talks about his life in boxing with an old acquaintance, despite being restricted by severe diabetes to a chair in his West London home.
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Never conceited about his key role in so many of boxing’s tight corners, though always pleased to help, Mancini was for many years closely associated with the ubiquitous British managerpromoter Mickey Duff. He also had what he sometimes called his “day job”, managing the Lonsdale Sports shop just off Regent Street — this was a regular port of call for any of those who used to be called, in prize ring days, the Fancy.
The young Mancini’s determination to learn all he could about training took him to the Star and Garter at Windsor in the 1950s to see the great American light-heavyweight Archie Moore who stopped more opponents inside the distance, 141, than any other fighter in any division. Moore’s weight-reducing diet, which he claimed to have copied from Australian Aboriginals, involved chewing but never swallowing his meat.
“Watching wide-eyed,” Mancini recalled, “I was marvelling at such dedication when old Archie called the waiter over and ordered a brandy and a large cigar.”
Once Mancini became a second, he found that dealing with the frantic seconds of activity between the rounds, treating cuts and giving advice, was quite different from having a front-row ringside seat.
“It’s like you’ve been forced up against a giant screen, completely filling your eyes during the boxing. I remember once I had Billy Calvert fighting that fine featherweight champion, Howard Winstone, and Howard threw 81 left jabs and caught Calvert, the man I’m supposed to be looking after, with 77 of them.”
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Mancini regarded one of his key world-title fights as being in the winning corner of British super-middleweight Nigel Benn against American Gerald McClellan in London in 1995. Benn was floored and cut in an explosive opening round but Mancini remembered the American trainer Angelo Dundee tipping him off that McClellan often had trouble making the weight. “You’ve got him now, Nigel, he’s given you all he’s got,” were Mancini’s vital words, Benn was to acknowledge after his eventual tenth round victory.
The subsequent plight of McClellan, damaged and blinded beyond repair, was deeply regretted by Mancini whose affection for all boxers led to years of tireless fund-raising on behalf of those who had fallen on hard times.
In the ring maybe the best compliment he ever received was being told by Albert Hillman from Farnborough, a British light-middleweight challenger: “It’s like having a round start with you in my corner.”
Mancini is survived by his wife June and a daughter.
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Dennie Mancini, boxing manager, was born on August 27, 1933, and died on September 10, 2004, aged 71.