New Book Explores the Life of Openly Gay Boxing Champ Emile Griffith

Posted May 29th 2008 9:38AM by Michael David Smith
Filed under: Boxing, MMA/Boxing

Emile Griffith is one of the all-time great boxers, a former welterweight and middleweight champion and 1964 Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year.

He's also, at age 70, a gay man who is ready to tell the whole story of his life, in and out of the ring. That's what he's done in the new book, Nine ... Ten ... And Out! The Two Worlds of Emile Griffith, which author Ron Ross wrote with Griffith's cooperation.

In the book, Griffith describes his feelings about his 1962 fight with Benny Paret, who taunted him with a homophobic slur at their weigh-in. Griffith viciously pummeled Paret in the ring at Madison Square Garden, and Paret went into a coma after the fight and died 10 days later. Griffith says:

"I keep thinking how strange it is ... I kill a man and most people understand and forgive me. However, I love a man, and to so many people this is an unforgivable sin; this makes me an evil person. So, even though I never went to jail, I have been in prison almost all my life."