Emile Griffith tell me about him......

Griffith was a very talented and well-rounded fighter. Definitely a top ten all-time welterweight IMO, and a very good, solid middleweight champion as well. His potential was obvious almost right from the start, and he was being matched against rated contenders only a year or so into his pro career. His resume is a who's who of the champions and contenders of his era, both at welterweight and middleweight and in between. He just fought everyone.

Curiously, he was involved in a lot of close/split controversial decisions, going either way. I've never figured out the actual reason he was such a magnet for close decisions and bizarre scoring, but he was. Often his fights could be very dull and ugly, but just as often his fights were lively and action-packed.