[8.7] EMILE GRIFFITH 112-85(23)-24-2-1 [Middleweight & Welterweight]: Emile Griffith - Mills Lane - Gil Clancy - Pete Hamill - US Fight Commentary TV - Ringside Rivalries TV - Teddy Brenner - Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story 2005 - The Ring online -
It hurts. No, no, I didn’t want to hurt anybody. Emile Griffith, televised interview, re death of Paret
Ruby did not call that fight right ... My understanding is, Ruby Goldstein did not referee after that fight. Mills Lane
I never thought he was the same fighter after Paret ... He was a hell of a fighter. Mills Lane
He was always such a great guy in the gym. Gil Clancy
His body was unbelievable. His upper body was that almost of a heavyweight. He came down in a V. He almost had shoulders you could serve a sit-down dinner for six on ... And he could hit ... He was a brilliant fighter. Pete Hamill
v Paret III Welterweight: I think it was pretty close up to the tenth maybe. I was sitting in the upper deck as a fan watching this fight. It was a tough tough fight. You could see every round was tough the way you saw it from back up. And when the knockout came it was ferocious; it was as ferocious a knockout as I have ever seen. Pete Hamill
v Paret III Welterweight: … Paret against the ropes almost on top of us. A minute to go ... They’re going to stop it. And Paret sinks to the canvas. Paret goes down from sheer exhaustion ... Paret has collapsed from exhaustion from that beating on the ropes. US fight commentary
There has been speculation over the years as to Griffith’s state of mind coming into the fight. Paret ... taunted him about his sexuality prior to the second fight; did so again before this bout as well. Ringside Rivalries
Griffith had gone down. From this point he will take control. ibid.
At the time Paret took the title from Jordan, I knew Emile Griffith would soon be prominent enough to challenge him for the ten stone seven pound title. I liked Griffith from the first day Gil Clancy brought him around to my office in the Garden.
The fighter worked in Howie Albert’s millinery factory before he went into the ring and it was Albert who started him in boxing. Griffith was a king out of St Thomas in the Virgin Islands who had no more thought of becoming a fighter than he dreamed of owning Madison Square Garden. He was 20 years of age when Albert put him into the Golden Gloves in New York. Griffith surprised everybody by taking a title. Teddy Brenner, Made-to-Measure Measure
Clancy was that kind of manager. Griffith fought for 19 years and won the welterweight and middleweight title five times. He had a dozen title fights in Madison Square Garden, all during the time I was the matchmaker. Whenever I needed a big fight, I would always depend on him. ibid.
The one night there was no difference of opinion in a Garden fight involving Griffith was the night he hit Paret so hard and so often in the Garden ring, Paret died of brain injuries ten days later. People had all kinds of theories about that fight. I think it was an unfortunate accident. ibid.
Just before Griffith went to Pittsburgh to be knocked out by Carter he was voted the winner of the Edward J Neil Memorial Award by the Boxing Writers Association. It was a big honour and Griffith was happy. Then he went to Pittsburgh and got flattened, and when he stood up on the dais at the writers’ award dinner to accept the Neil Trophy, he said: ‘Something funny happened to me on my way to the dinner. I stopped off in Pittsburgh.’ He brought the house down. ibid.
I came to this country in the 1950s from the Caribbean. I am a six-time world champion. In 1962 changed my life for ever. Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, 2005
I didn’t like nobody hitting on me. ibid.
‘Paret goes down from sheer exhaustion.’ ibid. US fight commentary
‘When he looked in the mirror he saw [Benny] Paret.’ ibid. contemporary
Griffith Easily Beats Fullmer. ibid. newspaper headline
Emile Griffith, a three-time welterweight king and a two-time middleweight champion during an era of undisputed titles, died Tuesday at an extended care facility in Hempstead, New York at age 75. In recent years Griffith had struggled with pugilistic dementia, the long-term effects of which eventually required full-time care.
The first boxing champion from the Virgin Islands might never have stepped inside a ring had it not been for Howie Albert’s powers of observation. During one steamy summer day, Griffith, then a 15-year-old shipping clerk at a ladies hat factory, asked to work shirtless.
‘So I went out and took my T-shirt off, the next thing I knew he was peeking at me,’ Griffith recalled in Peter Heller’s In This Corner. ‘Why he was peeking at me, I didn’t know what plans he had going through his head at the time. The next thing you know I was in the Golden Gloves.’
Impressed with Griffith’s V-shaped physique, Albert took Griffith to Gil Clancy’s Gym and the kid who originally wanted to be a baseball player began what would become a Hall of Fame boxing career.
Griffith flourished under Clancy’s tutelage and by age 19 he advanced to the 1957 New York Golden Gloves finals, where he lost a decision to Charles Wormley of the Salem Crescent Athletic Club. The following year Griffith captured the 147-pound Open Championship, defeating Osvaldo Marcano of the PAL’s Lynch Center. With no more amateur mountains to climb, he turned pro shortly thereafter.
Although Griffith stood just 5-foot-7¾, he sported a massive 72-inch reach that allowed him to box at distance and wage war in the trenches with equal dexterity. Because of this versatility, Griffith is generally regarded as one of the sport’s steadiest and most consistent performers.
Griffith won his first 13 fights before losing a 10-round split decision to veteran Randy Sandy in October 1959.
Over the next 13 years the losses were few and far between despite fighting relentlessly tough competition. The men he beat in title fights include Benny ‘Kid’ Paret (twice), Gaspar Ortega, Ralph Dupas, Jorge Fernandez, Luis Rodriguez (twice), Dick Tiger, Joey Archer (twice) and Nino Benvenuti. He also holds non-title victories over Tiger, Dupas, Fernandez (twice), Ortega, Denny Moyer (twice), Florentino Fernandez, Yama Bahama, Holly Mims, Andy Heilman, Stanley ‘Kitten’ Hayward, Gyspy Joe Harris, Tom Bogs, Ernie ‘Indian Red’ Lopez (twice), Max Cohen, Armando Muniz, Bennie Briscoe, Donato Paduano and Christy Elliott.
Even deep into his 30s, Griffith’s skills challenged fighters in the midst of their primes. In 1973, a 35-year-old Griffith nearly avenged a 14th-round TKO loss by pushing dominant middleweight champion Carlos Monzon to a close 15-round decision, and at age 38 he came within a few points of dethroning WBC 154-pound titlist Eckhard Dagge in his native Germany.
Half of the losses and both of the draws in his 85-24-2 (23) record occurred during the final 50 months of his career. It ended with three consecutive defeats, the last of which came to future middleweight champion Alan Minter. But when Griffith was at his best, most of the losses only came against other outstanding fighters like Jose Napoles, Monzon, Paret, Moyer, Benvenuti, Rodriguez, Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, Jean-Claude Bouttier and Hayward.
For all of his victories and all of his honors – which included Fighter of the Year awards in 1963 (BWAA) and 1964 (The Ring) as well as the magazine’s 1967 Fight of the Year when he lost to Benvenuti for the first time – Griffith is best known for an overarching tragedy. On March 24 1962 Griffith fought Paret for the third time and for the second time as a welterweight title challenger. Their pulsating series was saturated with personal tensions, the most infamous of which was Paret calling Griffith a ‘maricon’ – the Spanish equivalent for a homosexual slur – during the weigh-in.
‘Maybe it’s worse when someone you know and consider a good person does something really lousy to you than if it is a stranger. All I know is it felt like he stuck a knife into me,’ Griffith said in Ron Ross’ book ‘Nine … Ten … and Out! ‘If (Gil) Clancy didn’t jump right in and get between us I was ready to go to it then and there, without gloves, without three-minute rounds and no referee. ‘Save it for tonight, Emile,’ Clancy said as he wrapped his arms around me. ‘Save it for tonight. That’s what he wants to do, get you mad and out of your fight plan.’’
Despite being knocked down with a left hook in round six, Griffith was well ahead on points going into the fateful 12th. Following a listless 11th, Clancy ordered Griffith to not let up if he hurt Paret. The moment of truth arrived a little more than midway into the next round when Griffith staggered Paret with a torrid right to the jaw. With Clancy’s command ringing in his ears, Griffith landed 21 flush shots, mostly to Paret’s battered head, and by the end the Cuban’s body was frighteningly inert, as if his very soul had already exited his body.
Though Griffith was angry at Paret for what he said at the weigh-in, he didn’t hate him – certainly not to the point of killing him.