I saw the end of it from Ring of Fire a while ago... And honestly, I can't imagine how anyone could say that Fulmer didn't have a part in Paret's death. If anything it was every bit as brutal as the fight that put Paret in a coma, and it was the fight before Paret died in the ring. Thoughts?
I've seen it. It was a particularly brutal fight, compounded by the fact that Gene was a relentless and heavy puncher who wasn't going to get a decent fighter out of there with one shot. That's where the danger kicks in. It occurred only 3 months before the Griffith fight. Hardly enough time to recover.
Paret took an awful beating. Those short uppercuts on the inside were tearing up The Kid. Fullmer got good leverage on those short shots, sometimes it even seemed like he was putting his lower body into them so much that he was jumping up into the punch.
It was brutal. I have seen 9 rounds of the fight I belive. Fullmer as said before was a swarmer, and he gave Paret a bad beating. Now dont any of you go blaming Fullmer for what happen a fight later. That was the ref's Goldstine's fault. He should have NEVER had let Paret get 15 unanswer shots like that on the ropes. Yeah Paret may have been battle worn, but the ref was slow on the gun in that stoppage.
I've seen it. Brutal is the only word that fits. Paret had several grueling matches towards the end. They all contributed to his demise.
Non of you guys are laying the blame on the REAL cause. Ref Goldstine being slow on the gun. The guy let Paret take a bad beating on the ropes, with the back of his head hitting the ring post. That fight was stop 15 punchings 2 late. Dont blame early beatings for this. This ring death could have been prvented if the dam ref was doing his job.
The beating he took from Fulmer was every bit as brutal as the third fight with Griffith. Yet, I don't see you pointing any fingers towards that ref or the ref any other of Paret's brutal fights, which he had quite a few of. Stop trying to dump the whole of the blame onto the ref.
Paret was reportedly exhibiting behavioural personality changes after the beating from Fullmer. Still, Benny had produced his finest performance of the trilogy with Griff up to his devastating left hook knockdown of Emile. What would have happened to Paret, if Griff hadn't gotten up from Benny's bomb, or if Goldstein had stopped the match and awarded it to Paret after Emile beat the count in round six? I posit that the fatal blow was the first right hand which Griffith stunned Benny with, and that Paret was living on borrowed time after the Fullmer match. (Somehow lost in all the controversy over the tragic outcome of Griffith/Paret III is the fact that Fullmer's kayo win over Benny was his final career victory. Gene's next fight was several months after Benny's passing, and he lost his MW Title to Dick Tiger. I've wondered how much the Paret tragedy affected Gene, a devout Mormon.) If Goldstein had awarded Paret a sixth round TKO win, Benny would have probably wound up as he did anyway, at the hands of somebody else. Griff was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.) Considering how seriously stunned Paret had Griffith in that sixth round, the ferocity of Emile's attack is easy to understand. It wasn't anger I detected, but desperation on Griff's part. To me, it was a reflection of how badly hurt Benny had him in that sixth round. As for Ruby Goldstein, I simply cannot fathom how he got inducted into the IBHOF as a referee. He collapsed in the heat of the Maxim/Robinson match (ridiculous for a former world class boxer to succumb like that) before Robby himself did, he let Ingo whack a defenseless Floyd Patterson on the head after Johansson scored the first knockdown in their intial match, and then allowed Ingo to batter Floyd to the deck five more times before finally stopping the slaughter, then he simply froze up at the suddeness of Griffith's attack. Regarding Ruby Goldstein, the wonder to me is that he hadn't presided over a ring fatality before Griffith/Paret III. Make no mistake about it though, Paret's manager, Manuel Alfaro, was exploitative scum. Benny also bears some responsibility for his fate. A boxer is not supposed to get hit, yet Paret demonstrated his machismo by taking two punches to land one. (Maybe if Benny had been less of a "man" in his style of fighting, as he derided Griffith for being, then he might have survived his boxing career as Emile did.)
Fullmer in Pete Hellers book ,"In This Corner" admitted he felt responsible for Parets demise,and was very regretful.The fight is pretty hard to watch when you know the result.
Paret had multiple beatings before that third fight with Griffith already. Their first two bouts were already some bangers. He went into a 10 round war with Gaspar Ortega on a few days notice. And then...this fight,ouch.
Brutal is the word for it, and to put Paret back in the ring 90 days after that was a criminal offense. The only outrage close to this was Ali in the ring with Holmes as he was brain damaged and Ace Miller putting John Tate back in the ring with Berbick after he was knocked unconscious by Weaver in about 3 months.
