Emile Griffith, Benny Kid Paret Jr., and The End of The Ring of Fire
By Robert Brizel, Real Combat Media correspondent
Pugilistica Dementia, Parkinson’s, Gout, Arthritis and Diabetes are some of the conditions affected the now mentally and physically declining former World Welterweight, Light Middleweight and Middleweight champion of the world, Emile Griffith, 75, of Queens, New York. before he faded, the still coherent and very active Griffith was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990, and worked on a movie project entitled ‘Ring of Fire’ which amounts to his life story.
Ring of Fire Movie on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5OEBbzINOA
Griffith’s life, and true subconscious emotional pain, would be defined by a single moment on March 24, 1962, which still haunts him more than half a century later.
Griffith knocked out Benny Kid Paret after trapping him in a corner at 2:09 in the twelfth round of their third and final confrontation, regaining the World Welterweight title in Madison Square Garden on the then popular Friday Night Fights. Paret’s head was turned into a bashed in pumpkin in less than a minute, and referee Rube Goldstein had waited too long to stop the bout.
Goldstein would referee only once more in the next 22 years. Two years later, Goldstein refereed Luis Manuel Rodriguez winning a ten round decision over Holly Mims at The Garden two years later, on March 20, 1964, but it was clear after the Paret tragedy Griffith would never be the same fighter again, and Rube Goldstein’s days as a referee in the golden era of boxing were over for good.
Over four decades later, the aging Griffith, who later worked as a corrections guard and adopted a son, who never met with Mrs. Paret, met with Benny Kid Paret’s son Benny Kid Paret Jr., at the end of the movie Ring of Fire. The meeting ends a lifetime of bitterness, remorse and sadness for both men. Young Paret was only two when his father died.
Benny Kid Paret Jr. and Emile Griffith Finally meet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbKSqHRIQ4k
Regarding the beating Griffith took outside a Manhattan gay bar in 1992 which was related to his sexuality, arecent biography has Griffith coming out as gay. However in an interview with Sports Illustrated, Griffith, who was married with a daughter early in his boxing career, tells a much different tale. “I like women both. But I don’t like that word homosexual, gay or faggot. I don’t know what I am. I love men and women the same, but if you ask me which is better, I like women.” It was the taunts at the weigh-in Benny Kid Paret had thrown at Emile Griffith from behind the scale, the taunts that insulted his sexuality, which led to the slaughter in the ring.
In reality, Paret had lost five of his last seven bouts, and had been knocked out by Gene Fullmer in the tenth round of an NBA World Middleweight title bout only three months earlier. His opponents in his last seven bouts had a combined 336 wins, and so much damage had been done coming into the Paret versus Griffith III bout even Benny Paret Jr. concedes his father should never have been in there and should not have been allowed to fight, and doesn’t blame Griffith or hold him responsible for his father’s death.
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