Champion boxer Emile Griffith died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 75.
Griffith boxed professionally for 20 years. Griffith was born in the Virgin Islands. His mother moved to New York when he was young. His father had abandoned the family.
He lived with relatives in New York before moving to Florida.
He is best known for his third boxing match with Benny “Kid” Paret in 1964. Griffith knocked him out in the 12th round. Benny died at the hospital 10 days later.
“He called me maricón[.] Maricón in English means faggot,” Griffith told Peter Heller in a book.
Griffith admitted to being bisexual in 2008, but he was enraged at Paret’s 1962 insult.
The New York State Athletic Commission investigated Paret’s death. They cleared referee, Ruby Goldstein, of wrongdoing in delaying the end of the match.
“He was filled with rage. But he always said it was never hate. It was ironic that he was a person who wound up killing a person in the ring because he was not that kind of fighter,” author Ron Ross told The New York Post.
Image: By Roberto via Wikimedia Commons