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August 31, 1969—a date etched in boxing history as the day the sport lost one of its brightest gems. Just a day shy of his 46th birthday, Rocky Marciano perished in a tragic plane crash. He was a passenger aboard a small Cessna 172 traveling from Chicago to Des Moines, Iowa. Shortly after a refueling stop, the aircraft—piloted by an inexperienced f...

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Anthony Ippolito, who portrayed Al Pacino in the Paramount limited series The Offer, is now tackling another famous Italian American actor. Ippolito has nabbed the starring role in I Play Rocky, the story of the making of boxing classic Rocky being made by Amazon MGM. Peter Farrelly, the comedy helmer who won an Oscar for directing The Green Book,...

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Marvin Vettori is having his “Italian Dream” in the UFC, having spent nine years fighting for the promotion as of 2025. He debuted with a win over Alberto Uda in 2016 and has gone on to become a fixture of the sport, racking up 16 fights over that time. As he prepares to fight at UFC 318, here is everything you need to know about Marvin “The Italia...

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Join us for an engaging episode as we explore the vibrant essence of Italian American culture and the powerful world of adaptive sports. We begin our journey where Dolores and John reflect on Italian American heritage and the camaraderie that defines our community. With humor and warmth, we recount Dolores’s wedding anniversary, where the fusion of...

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The this-should-be-made-into-a-movie life of Joey Eye began in 1969 in Palermo, Sicily, when his 14-year-old mother and 35-year-old father gave him up for adoption. He was sent to Philadelphia. He grew up as “a little curly-haired Italian kid” in a rough Irish-German neighborhood in North Philadelphia (“that built character”) and later found comfor...

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A team of Italian artists, led by Carmine Di Giandomenico, Francesco Colafella, and Maestro Tanino Liberatore, has come together to tell the story of legendary boxer Rocky Marciano in a work that blends comic book and biography, offering a fresh perspective on his extraordinary career. Born on September 1, 1923, in Brockton, Massachusetts, Rocco Fr...

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Rino Tommasi, a true monument of Italian sports journalism, passed away on January 8. The great Rino, born 90 years ago in Verona, was for decades the most famous voice and television face of boxing and tennis matches. He was a living encyclopedia, in the days when the Internet and Wikipedia did not exist he could recount by heart anecdotes, data,...

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Get ready to rumble, San Diego! Our beloved Little Italy is about to transform into a boxing ring for one electrifying night. The second annual Punches in Little Italy amateur boxing showcase, set to honor the legacy of Bobby DePhilippis, will light up Washington Elementary. Bobby DePhilippis was the heart and soul of Little Italy. If you’ve ever s...

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After a brief-but-stellar career in prizefighting, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini has found satisfaction and success as a movie producer, winemaker, philanthropist and family man as well as Youngstown, Ohio’s, biggest booster. The world knows Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini as the formidable boxer with the charming personality who became a World Boxing Associatio...

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At the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Italy stunned the world by winning 40 medals, a record for the Azzurri since they have been participating in the Olympics. Above all, it amazed with its five victories in athletics, the queen of Olympic sports. From July 26, in Paris, for the third time in history, athletes fr...

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