Benny Paret vs. Emile Griffith III / 1960s
On March 24, 1962, reigning welterweight champion Benny “Kid” Paret faced Emile Griffith at Madison Square Garden in the deciding bout of their brutal three-fight rivalry. Griffith was favored to reclaim the title, but the contest carried an unusually personal edge. At the morning weigh-in, Paret reportedly taunted Griffith in Spanish with the homophobic insult “maricón,” a slur that struck Griffith especially deeply because he had worked in a women’s hat factory and would later identify as bisexual—something that was still dangerous to acknowledge publicly in the athletic culture of the time. Griffith later said the insult enraged him, and the animosity was visible throughout the fight. Paret nearly stopped Griffith in the sixth round, but the challenger survived and returned to control the bout.
The catastrophe came in the twelfth round. After backing Paret into a corner, Griffith unleashed a sustained barrage while Paret was slumped against the ropes with his head and upper body partly outside the ring. Griffith held Paret by the shoulder and repeatedly drove right uppercuts into his head. Slow-motion review counted 29 unanswered punches before referee Ruby Goldstein intervened and stopped the fight. Goldstein later said he believed Paret was still trying to defend himself and might recover, while Paret’s manager, Manuel Alfaro, was criticized for failing to throw in the towel sooner. Paret remained standing for a moment after the stoppage, then collapsed and was carried from the ring. He never regained consciousness and died ten days later at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan from massive brain hemorrhaging.
The aftermath transformed boxing’s public image. New York officials investigated whether Paret had been medically cleared too soon after three punishing fights in less than a year, including a December 1961 bout with Gene Fullmer. Goldstein, although officially cleared, suffered nightmares, insomnia, and flashbacks, allowed his referee’s license to lapse, and permanently retired after officiating only one more bout in 1964. Griffith received hate mail from Paret supporters who believed the assault had been intentional and reportedly carried guilt and recurring nightmares for decades. Governor Nelson Rockefeller appointed a commission to investigate the fight and boxing generally; together with later televised boxing deaths, including Davey Moore’s fatal 1963 bout, the incident helped fuel boxing’s decline on network television. ABC eventually canceled its weekly Fight of the Week program, and the tragedy became the subject of the 2005 documentary Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, which concluded with Paret’s son embracing Griffith and telling him he was forgiven.
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