Emile Griffith, an elegant boxer with a quick jab, forever dogged by 1962 fatal bout
Fans revered the elegant Emile Griffith who had a quick jab, but one fatal bout against Benny Paret overshadowed his career to the end
Inside the smaller theatre at Madison Square Garden about five years ago, shortly before a world title fight, Emile Griffith was introduced one more time to the crowd. He rose shakily from his seat, waved ever so briefly and then sat down.
The applause kept going.
Revered in retirement perhaps more than during his fighting days, Griffith died on Tuesday at 75 after a long battle with pugilistic dementia. The first fighter to be crowned world champion from the US Virgin Islands, Griffith required full-time care late in life and died at an extended care facility in Hempstead, New York.
"Emile was a gifted athlete and truly a great boxer," Hall of Fame director Ed Brophy said. "Outside the ring, he was as great a gentleman as he was a fighter."
An elegant fighter with a quick jab, Griffith's brilliant career was overshadowed by the fatal beating he gave Benny "The Kid" Paret in a 1962 title bout. The outcome darkened the world of boxing, even prompting some network television stations to stop showing live fights. It also cast him as a pariah to many inside and outside the sport.
He went on to have a successful career after that, but Griffith acknowledged later that he was never the same boxer. He would fight merely to win, piling up the kind of decisions that are praised by purists, but usually jeered by fans hoping for a knockout.