Emile "La Maricón Peligroso" Griffith

A superb h2h talent with perhaps the GOAT résumé at welterweight, historically ever a glamour division. In a campaign that clocks in just eleven months shy of two full decades, he crammed in some of the craziest matchmaking you will ever find, even by ATG standards.

One salient point stands out. 55% of the opponents he faced (with 112 bouts and well over a thousand rounds boxed) were top-10 ranked contenders.

Just let that sink in. That is an obscene statistic. That is sickening. Absurd. Fantastical.

The kiddies of today just won't be able to appreciate the greatness of Griffith via one perfunctory glance at his BoxRec page, or even a couple of YouTube clips (though his skills are self-evident and timeless and one can easily picture him storming through 147lbs today were he transplanted from some of his filmed performances into the ring with some of what pass for modern elites). Some might even balk at his record for appearing too pedestrian to belong to someone old-school boxing scholars insist was a Great with a bold capital G. :-( (and might then start levying empty accusations of nostalgia bias and hipster-ism toward anybody rating him exactly as highly as is appropriate)

Yes, there are two dozen losses on there. Examine the ones that occurred in his prime (pretty much the breadth of the nineteen-sixties), however.

Three split decisions, two of them later avenged. In both rivalries he ended up claiming a 2-1 share and in one he...well, beat a man to death, as conclusive an exclamation point as can be put on such a thing.

A close loss to El Feo (many contemporary publications seeing it Griffith's way), twice over avenged, in a rivalry that saw Griffith best him in 3 of 4 contests.

The Hurricane fluke.

Another SD. (avenged by year's end)

UD loss to Hall of Fame entry Fullmer.

UD loss to Benvenuti in FOTY, avenged months later.

Razor thin loss to Benvenuti in the rubber match.

Another SD, this one also quickly avenged.

...and now, at last, we reach Napoles - the ONE AND ONLY clear and decisive loss in Griffith's prime, and it was at the very tail end of it.

Yes, he was past his prime by the Monzón loss. No disrespect to Escopeta, he just was. (still a good W for Monzón, though, especially the method to achieve the result, overwhelming and stopping Griffith)

Now weigh those losses - just one clear and decisive, and that coming to a fellow great - against the # of scalps he collected in that same decade. Ridiculous.

Outside the ring he was as fascinating a figure as inside. By the end of his life he was openly bi***ual, paving the way for combat sports athletes in the present day to come out while still active (Orlando Cruz in boxing, Liz Carmouche in the UFC, and Rod Llaneza in kickboxing) - and while he didn't quite embrace his ***uality in his own heyday, it would have carried much starker repercussions than it would today. The fact that he did eventually, once it was safe, confirm his predilections in various interviews makes it safe to call him a pioneer of tolerance in the sport as well as perhaps its most decorated practitioner in a division that ranks among its most storied.

 

Different time, friend. Wouldn't have been practicable.

...though it does roll nicely off the glot.

 

Yeah, even adjusted for that his resume is still bananas.

 

:good

 

:-( Probably accurate.

:yep

It takes a certain kind of bad ass confidence in your fighting abilities to have casually made passes at random men in a time like that.

 

Griffith vs. Benvenuti I (full):
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Griffith vs. Benvenuti II (partial):
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