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Boxing: Mitri death moves Italy Source: AFP|Published: Friday February 16, 6:36 AM MILAN, Italy, Feb 15: The lonely death of one of Italy's most famous boxers has fuelled efforts by the Italian state to provide welfare for former pugilists who have fallen on hard times. On Wednesday the Italian Senate backed a law that would provide state money for former boxers of an international standing living in poverty. The law provides for a monthly sum of between 3.5 million and five million lira ($A3,000$A4,400) for a former fighter over the age of 65 who won major international titles and is enduring financial hardship. That bill was passed the day before today's funeral of one of Italy's most revered fighters, Tiberio Mitri, who died Monday at the age of 74 in poverty and in ill health. Mitri's funeral provided the platform for many former Italian boxers to vent their anger at their treatment. Giovanni Censi, who represented Italy in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, said: "I have a face full of punches, I boxed for a living and I have nothing left ... boxing is dying and we are dying with it and the (boxing) federation is doing nothing." Another former boxer, Domenico Adinolfi, a former European light heavyweight champion, slammed the presence at the funeral of politicians and Boxing Federation chiefs who in his view had not done anything to help Mitri, nicknamed 'Tiger of Trieste'. "Mitri was abandoned by pratically everyone," he said. "Now they have all come just to be seen." Former European middleweight champion Mitri, once beaten on points by the legendary ItalianAmerican Jake 'Raging Bull' La Motta in a 15round world title bout in New York, was remembered in his funeral service, three days after wandering on to rail tracks and being run over by a train. He will be buried in Trieste on Tuesday. Mitri suffered from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases and both illnesses were so advanced that he frequently lost his way and often asked why his son who died in the 1970s no longer visited him. He earned many film roles in the 1950s and 1960s and a failed marriage to a former Miss Italy but spent his twilight years in Rome's working class Trastevere district. Many fighters have died or been seriously injured in the ring but many who retire in reasonable health experience health difficulties in later years, often brainrelated. Legendary American former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, who suffers from advanced Parkinson's Disease, is perhaps the most famous example of a former fighter in ill health although the cause cannot be definitively attributed to his ring experiences. The day after Mitri was killed France's former WBA world supermiddleweight champion Christophe Tiozzo was in a Geneva court to attend the trial of a Brazilian financier who allegedly ruined him. http://www.theage.com.au/breaking/0102/16/A22594-2001Feb16.shtml *****************