The most memorable fight in Gil Clancy’s long career as a boxing trainer and manager was the one he most wanted to forget. Clancy’s star pupil, Emile Griffith, had already split a pair of closely fought bouts with Cuba’s Benny “the Kid” Paret when they met for a third time in New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 1962. The world welterweight title was on the line. At the weigh-in the morning of the fight, Paret muttered an epithet to Griffith suggesting that he was a homosexual. Enraged, Griffith lunged for Paret, and Clancy had to hold him back.
That night in the Garden, Griffith pinned Paret against the ropes in the 12th round. Recalling Clancy’s instructions to keep hitting Paret until he fell, Griffith pummeled the Cuban with a whirlwind of blows until referee Ruby Goldstein intervened. Paret slumped to the canvas and never regained consciousness. He died 10 days later. “Dad didn’t talk about it much because it was so bad,” said Clancy’s daughter, Patricia Houlahan. “My father was the type of man who kept that stuff inside.”
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