An operatic reminder of death in the boxing ring

There’s an opera at the Met in New York, “Champion,” about boxing. Really about one fight and two men, one of whom would die from the result of that fight, the other who unleashed the fatal blows and was known to inhabit gay bars.

If that doesn’t create a modern libretto, well, Verdi didn’t have to deal with a 10-count after a knockdown.

A New York Times piece about the arrival of “Champion,” was a reminder of an era three decades past when I was employed by United Press International, known as a wire service in a room full of clattering teletype machines.

It was a Saturday night on March 24, 1962. Not only would there be a world championship bout at Madison Square Garden, but on another channel, an earlier hour, Wake Forest would play UCLA in the third-place game of the NCAA basketball tournament at Louisville. Which was also the same night as the game between the schools that won in the semis-Ohio State and the eventual champ, Cincinnati.

I did say the era was different.

Emile Griffith, originally from the Virgin Islands, and Benny (Kid) Paret, from Cuba, had fought twice previously, each winning one.  

Griffith’s clothes, actions, and relationships earned him a reputation as a homosexual, which in that era was not acceptable in most sports, especially the manly art of self-defense, as in the present. Griffith kept his lifestyle as secret as possible. There were rumors and sniggers. And little until the weigh-in     

Then, closeup after their weights had been recorded Paret, who could be cocky, called Griffith “maricon,” a Spanish word which translates as “queer” or faggot. Never awakening, Paret died 10 days later from a brain hemorrhage.

When Griffith got Paret in a corner he was unstoppable and unforgiving, pounding Paret’s head until he collapsed. We saw him carried out, never awakening, and he died 10 days later.  

It was sad and stunning, a televised shock to us all.

We would find out years later, it also was retribution. In 2005, Griffith told The New York Times that Paret’s taunts had “touched something inside.”

“I’m sorry but he called me a name, so I did what I had to do.”