Emile Griffith
Dies at 75, One of Bert Sugar's All-Time Greats" src="http://realcombatmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/BrizelSugar-1024x768.jpg" width="700" height="525" /> Emile Griffith Dies at 75, One of Bert Sugar’s All-Time GreatsEmile Griffith Dies at 75, One of Bert Sugar’s All-Time Greats
By Robert Brizel, Real Combat Media Correspondent
Twice during his career as a boxing writer, the late great boxing writer Bert Sugar came up with his list of the 100 greatest fighters of all-time. Emile Griffith was on both lists, and deservedly so. Sugar talked about Griffith’s career with Don Dunphy and other journalists of the era in the 2005 documentary movie ‘Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story’. The end of the movie features a touching reunion (over four decades after Griffith fought Benny Kid Paret) between Griffith and Benny Paret Jr., only child of World Welterweight champion Benny Kid Paret who died after his bout with Griffith at Madison Square Garden in March 1962.
Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, 2005 Sports Documentary on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5OEBbzINOA
Griffith, who preceded Julian ‘The Hawk’ Jackson as the first world boxing champion from the United States Virgin Islands, died in a hospice care facility on Hempstead, Long Island, New York on July 23, 2013 at the age of 75. Turning pro in 1958, and fighting until 1975, Griffith compiled a professional record of 85 wins, 22 losses, with 23 knockouts. A world welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight champion, Griffith’s career came to an end of July 1977 at the age of 39 when he lost a ten round decision to European and future world middleweight champion Alan Minter in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
The careers of Minter, who held the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council World Middleweight titles in 1980, and Griffith, who held the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council World Middleweight titles between 1965 and 1968, share a tragic twelfth round parallel besides their middleweight bout.
On March 24, 1962, Griffith faced Penny Kid Paret for the World Welterweight title for the third and final time at Madison Square Garden. In the televised fight of the week, Referee Rube Goldstein probably waited too long to stop Griffith’s merciless beating of Paret in the twelfth round. Paret slipped in unconsciousness and went into a coma, dying at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City ten days later. An analysis of Paret’s record shows lost five of his last seven bouts, five of which were world title bouts. Three of Paret’s last four bouts were with Griffith, and at the point Paret was beaten for the final time, he had probably been in too many wars to survive. “It was a series of punches and he went through the ropes, I kept on punches. I kept on punching. “
The ultimate fault and blame for Benny Kid Paret’s death was neither due to Emile Griffith’s fighting ability of Rube Goldstein’s refereeing. Paret had taken a horrific beating from World Middleweight champion Gene Fullmer in his previous bout, and should not have been allowed to fight again.
According to Benny Paret Jr., Paret’s son, regarding Paret’s manager Manuel Alfaro, “I’ll say it now, and I’ll say it at any other time and place. Manuel Alfaro is solely responsible for my father’s death. My father should not have been in the ring that night (against Emile Griffith the third time)”. Goldstein refereed one more bout in 1964 at the Garden, his refereeing career totally ruined. Goldstein died in obscurity in New York City in 1984. Emile Griffith’s career forged on in the face of hateful telephone calls and hate mail. The impact of Paret’s death in the television black and white era, boxing first televised fatality, cost boxing its place on public television for ten years till CBS and ABC gradually brought it back to public interest. The Paret bout had led to a national outcry which attempted to ban the sport of boxing outright, and although no action was ever taken, at the time Griffith-Paret occurred, the constant televised repetition of Paret’s final moments cast a dark shadow over the sport of boxing at a time when it least needed it.
Emile Griffth versus Benny Paret III 1962 Bout on YouTube, Don Dunphy Commentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnpCU7MjOBY
Alan Minter, Griffith’s last opponent in the ring, won the vacant EBU European Middleweight title with a twelfth round knockout of Angelo Jacopucci in Bellaria, Italy. Jacopucci died after spending five months in a coma after the knockout. Minter, like Paret, Sugar Ray Robinson (Sam Baraudi), Rya Mancini (Duk-Koo Kim), Lupe Pintor (Johnny Owen)and so many other before him, had to relive the same mental anguish as Griffith.
Emile Griffith won the WBA and WBC World Middleweight titles with a fifteen round decision over Dick Tiger at Madison Square Garden in April 1966. He defended in twice against Joey Archer, before losing it, winning it back, and losing it again to Giovanni Nino Benvenuti. Griffith’s four subsequent attempts to regain a world title were unsuccessful: the World Welterweight title held by Jose Napoles; the World Light Middleweight title held by Eckhard Dagge, and the World Middleweight title held Carlos Monzon (twice). When trainer Gil Clancy told Emile he was finished, Emile protested but reluctantly retired for good in 1977 on Clancy’s advice.
Griffith was married and divorced to Mercedes Donastorg. He adopted his wife’s daughter, and later adopted a son, Luis Rodrigo Griffith, who served as his caretaker in recent years. After retirement from the ring, Griffith worked as a boxing trainer and a corrections guard. Griffith trained such world champions as Wilfredo Benitez and Juan LaPorte. Griffith, who was bisexual and publicly stated a preference for women over men, was badly beaten in 1992 as he emerged from a gay bar in New York City in 1992, was hospitalized for a month, wound up on life support, with his long term memory affected. His ex-wife Mercedes noted: “I think part of Emile died after the Benny Paret fight. He don’t like to talk about it. You can see that he was-and is-still hurting over it.”
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