I can comfortably see him being in almost any educated top 20-25 ATG list. What the man accomplished well over his best weight, holding back after the Parret tragedy... Pretty amazing. A far too long career distorts his record on paper. His record as late as 1972 was 74-12. Considering the quality of opposition that Emile fought that's amazing. In his first five years of fighting his only three losses were all SD's. His first undisputed loss came against the far more experienced 50 and 2 Luis Manuel Rodriguez. Up until a certain point he avenged nearly every one of his losses. Great fighter. Not talked about nearly often in my opinion. Thoughts?
As a fighter I thought he was an excellent stand-up technician. Textbook skills combined with craftiness on the inside and out. Very good jab, distance control, left hook, etc. I think, based on styles, I'd favor him over someone like Duran, who I think he matches up with better than guys like Napoles, Gavilan, Leonard, etc.
The thing about Emile is that while he wasn't a really dominant champ neither at welter nor MW, he's still a p4p ATG. Fighters like Tiger ,Benvenuti might have been superior as MWs and Napolés as a welter yet p4p Griffith rates above them. Remember he never scaled above jr MW when he held the MW title. He was really not especially good at anything(except maybe as a body puncher): rather average KO% and hardly a master boxer either. Yet he overcame fighters who were harder hitters or better boxers, outboxing the sluggers and outslugging the boxers. And he seldom won with big margins either. Few fighters fought so many SDs or MDs as Emile. He had this talent of just edging the opponent which made for thrilling fights. He kind of "outgriffithed" them. I feel his accomplishments during the 60's makes him no.2 p4p of that era(Ali being no1), yet I'd say Ortiz, Jofre and maybe even Saldivar were better fighters, but Emile got more out of his talent.
Griffith was one of the most natural fighters I've ever seen. Look at his fight with Gaspar Ortega just a few fights into his pro career, and you'd swear it looked like Griff was already at his peak. The notion that Griff only began to "hold back" after the Paret tragedy is a bit of a myth, however. He had shown a tendency to be lazy or inconsistent in his fights even before that. Heck, the whole reason there was a third Paret fight is because Griffith sleepwalked his way through their second, and ended up losing a decision. Griff was definitely a ATG fighter, particularly at welterweight. I would've loved to have seen how Napoles handled a prime Griffith.
Your assessment of Griffith is right on the money, IMO. I can't add a thing to that except to say that Griffith was an alltime great, and one of the very best 15 round fighters of all time, and he fought more championship rounds than just about anybody, I believe, if I'm not mistaken.
The 1st round ko by Hurricane Carter was a fluke, IMO. If they were to fight again, with Griffith at middleweight at any other time in their careers, Griffith win the decision goin away. The Griffith that beat Dick Tiger both times would be able to avenge against Carter. NOBODY would blow out Griffith like that again, no matter who in history.
One record Emile holds that will never be broken is the total number of Championship bout rounds fought. (I think Pepp is 2nd)
