Emile Griffith, a middleweight champion in the 1960s and one of the best boxers in the history of New York, passed away in his sleep Monday night. He was 75.
Born in the St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Emile Alphonse Griffith compiled a record of 85-24-2 with 23 knockouts during a career that spanned from 1958-1977. He became the first fighter from the U.S. Virgin Islands to become a world champion when he captured the welterweight title by beating Benny “Kid” Paret in 1964. He won the light middleweight title in 1962, but made his career as a middleweight first winning the championship in 1966 beating Dick Tiger. He was a staple of Madison Square Garden boxing where he often defended his middleweight title.
“When you look at boxing history, he was one of the greats not just in New York boxing history, but the history of boxing period,” said Lou DiBella, who published Griffith’s autobiography, “Nine, Ten, and Out! The Two Worlds of Emile Griffith,” written by Ron Ross.
Griffith is probably best known for his third fight against Paret in 1962 for the welterweight world championship at the Garden where Paret was knocked out in the 12th round, left the ring unconscious on a stretcher and died 10 days after the fight.
The two had grown up playing basketball together in the schoolyards of New York before Paret moved to Florida. But before their third bout, Paret had called Griffith a derogatory word in Spanish for homosexual. Griffith would later reveal in his 2008 autobiography that he had been bisexual through his teens. But in 1962, Griffith was angered by Paret’s slur.
“Whether Benny was urged to do it by one of his corner men, we’ll never know. But Emile was shocked,” Ross said. “He was filled with rage. But he always said it was never hate. It was ironic that he was a person who wound up killing a person in the ring because he was not that kind of fighter. He didn’t go in there with hate and rage. Boxing was always an athletic event to him.”
Griffith initially wanted no part of boxing until he was convinced by his manager/trainer Gil Clancy that it was an art form. “He was good at anything he did,” Ross said. “He just had this athletic ability. Through grace and power he was able to excel at anything he did.”
Ross learned of Griffith death Tuesday morning when he got a call from Griffith’s adopted son Luis Rodrigo Griffith. Emile Griffith had been living at an extended care facility in Nassau County for the last couple of years in what Ross described as a “vegetative state.” Griffith had been in declining healthy since 1992 when he was mugged and viciously beaten after leaving a gay bar.
“It was so disheartening, so depressing to visit him,” Ross said. “He was fed through a feeding tube. He would just lay there sleeping. They’d keep the TV on, but there was never any recognition of anyone or anything.”
Ross would rather remember Griffith when he was smiling and entertaining. “He was an entertainer at whatever he did,” Ross said. “Whether it was in the ring or with a microphone in his hand at a party, he was just a social animal. He was a wonderful person to be around.”
DiBella called Griffith “a trailblazer” for speaking out about his bisexuality in his autobiography. “It’s pretty courageous that he came out of the closet as an elderly person,” DiBella said. “Those rumors had followed around Emile for years. But as a senior citizen he told his told story.”
Wednesday night’s Broadway Boxing Card at the Roseland Ballroom will be dedicated to Griffith, DiBella said. The featured bout matches Brooklyn’s Yuri Foreman (30-2, 8 KOs) against Jamaal Davis (14-9-1, 6 KOs).