The Best of the Rest: 160lbs Tier II Tournie - Round 1 - Fight 8: Emile Griffiths UD15 Young Corbett

What i've done is i've lifted top tiers out of my top fifty at the poundage and organised them into a seeded tournament to uncover "the best of the rest" at the poundage, with you, the denizens of the world's greatest boxing history forum, casting the deciding vote. The difference between this middleweight tournament and the equivalent at 175lbs is that I've left ALL the guys with no footage in this time. I understand that makes things difficult and for some, frustrating but there are just far too many excellent and intriguing fighters from middleweight history. I understand this makes making a pick very hard, but i hope you'll still place a vote and make a post because obviously without your input the whole thing becomes meaningless.

Pick your man! Write however many details you like or don't in a post below. But maybe try to post, to keep things moving a little bit. You have three days.

And let's be nice. No reason for disagreeing over total fantasies after all!

15 rounds, 1950s rules and ref. Ten points must. Weigh in is 18 hours before the fight.

I'll only vote if it's tied, then I'll decide the result.

Round of Thirty-Two Fight 8: Emile Griffiths vs Young Corbett III


EMILE GRIFFITH (85-24-2)
The wonderful welterweight and light-middleweight champion Emile Griffith first elected to dip his toe into the choppier waters of middleweight not against soft-sell opposition designed to give him the feel for the bigger division but against ranked men, taking on and beating old foe Denny Moyer and the recently eliminated Don Fullmer back to back in August and October of 1962. Griffith couldn’t quite dominate Moyer, who forced his way back into their third and final fight savagely in the eighth and ninth rounds, but Griffith was always better suited to the habitat Moyer favoured, up close where identifying punching opportunity and accuracy, Griffith’s two greatest attributes, were at a premium. This was a problem hanging over Griffith, however, given that he was a natural light-middleweight moving up in search of glory and money; inside is the last place you want to be against a bigger opponent, on paper.

Griffith moved beautifully, too, and can be named among the most legitimate of polished all-rounders when fresh, but as soon as fatigue began to find him, it was to the inside that he went. This was fine in the early 1960s with the title passing merrily between Paul Pender and Terry Downes, both of whom Griffith likely could have out-boxed up close, but when the title started to move between Dick Tiger and Joey Giardello, Griffith seemed without hope of ever picking up the title. Boxing inside against Tiger, especially, was akin to surrender.

This is what Emile Griffith did, though, when his status as the welterweight champion of the world and his performances against borderline ranked fighters proved enough to get him into a Madison Square Garden ring with Tiger in 1965. Not for the first half of the fight, though. In the first half of the fight, Griffith worked to keep the fight at range where he did not, could not dominate against Tiger, very probably the superior technician. But he also, with generalship and mobility, prevented Tiger from dominating – his whole fight plan was one big interference with the great champion’s own.

So it was that when Tiger started to dial his jab in, Griffith stepped inside on an apparent suicide mission. But legendary trainer Gil Clancy had gambled, and convinced an uncertain Griffith, that he had and even at welterweight had had, the strength of a middleweight. To his own surprise, Griffith was able to match Tiger for spells, even pushing him back in rounds seven, eight and eleven. Even though he was handled on occasions, it was Tiger, not he, who visited the canvas in round now. The knockdown was the very definition of flash but it was legitimate, Tiger’s right knee buckling behind a one-two for the first visit to the canvas of his storied career.

Griffith got the decision in a fight that could have been scored any one of three ways and although it should be noted that most ringside reporters saw it for Tiger, film shows a desperately close encounter which I think can validly be given to Griffith.

Meetingt with Joey Archer for his first defence, Griffith took the opposite attitude and attacked, bullied and handled his bigger opponent for a narrow decision deemed controversial in some quarters; so he re-matched Archer and beat him again; then began his three fight series with Benvenuti.

Griffith began to suffer up at middleweight and as the 1970s dawned, it would be Monzon who would be Griffith’s chief-tormentor; but despite a certain inconsistency in his middleweight work that did not exist for him at welterweight, he continued to add to resume in the new decade, including men like Stanley Hayward (who also bested him once) and Bennie Briscoe.


YOUNG CORBETT III (121-12-22)
Young Corbett, born Raffaele Capabianca Giordano in Italy, arrived on American shores while still an infant grew to become one of the premier welterweights of a golden age for the division in that country before being run from it by a primed Jimmy McLarnin who smashed him out in a single round. Such ignominy had never afflicted the teak-tough southpaw before and never would be again; he moved north, in search of bigger game. Corbett’s time at 160 pounds was limited, but he made an astonishing impact, an impact he does not receive the proper credit for.

Not a huge puncher, his power has become underrated as he proved in his first meaningful contest at the new weight, against the highly rated Young Terry, who he took out with a single body shot. Standing at around 5’7”, he would often give away height and reach to more natural middleweights, a problem, too, encountered by his next opponent, the great Mickey Walker. Walker was fading but was also coming off a victory over the great Maxie Rosenbloom; against Corbett he won only a single round. After earning a decision over the wonderful Dutchman Bep Van Klaveren (who had just defeated Ceferino Garcia) Corbett then dropped one, to the excellent Lou Brouillard and promptly vanished from the ring for a full year. When he returned, it was still as a middleweight and in short order he defeated two future light-heavyweight champions of the world, stopping the rugged Gus Lesnevich in five and then, even better, outpointing the legendary Billy Conn. Conn would improve, but he was already a wonderful fighter and in the previous 20 months he had defeated no fewer than two all-time great fighters in the shape of Teddy Yarosz and Fritzie Zivic. Conn was also the darling of the American press, anointed a future king at the tender age of 19. Corbett, a veteran in the truest sense of the word, smiled and gathered to himself every facet of Conn’s relative inexperience, cutting him – some say with a deliberate headbutt – before dropping him with punches in the second. Conn never recovered.

But he did impress with a show of heart and chin undisputed and this, in combination with his status as golden-child of boxing, guaranteed him a rematch, which Conn comfortably won. Still Corbett was not finished but rather matched the man being named the uncrowned champion of the middleweight division, Fred Apostoli. A huge favorite, Apostoli spoke of Corbett, “his idol,” as does a man at a great rival’s funeral, respectfully but without fear of reprisals. Corbett dug in for one last great performance, winning the fight 5-3-2 on The Associated Press card and gaining the official decision despite the fact that in the 10th he seemed desperately close to collapse, his face a mess of blood and injury. Apostoli avenged himself as Conn had and in forcing Corbett to submit on the canvas he signaled the coming end of what had been a wonderful career. But going 1-1, past prime and outsized, with monsters like Apostoli and Conn speaks for, not against Corbett’s legacy.

 

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Perturbed, gentlemen?

 

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Emile Griffiths outpointed Young Corbett III unanimously and widely. Corbett was continually out-muscled in close and home for a thumping Griffiths jab when he hid outside, while his own prestigious cross found no home.