A BAD GOOD FIGHT
length of time it took officials to tally the scorecards. “That’s the real reason I don’t think children should be permitted to watch fights on TV,” Young wrote. “Not that they are brutal, but I wouldn’t want the kids to see how the grownups add.” Much had been riding on the bout. The U.S. government’s crackdown on the sport’s mob ties had alarmed sponsors. No one wanted to sell their products on a program apparently linked to gangsters. To combat boxing’s disappearance from the commercial airwaves, Madison Square Garden’s new strategy involved teaming up with RKO General Broadcasting and pitching the fight on a city- by-city basis. They’d done this with a previous Griffith bout with middling results, but Tiger- Griffith seemed like a surefire seller. The plan was to show the fight on local affiliates of a major network, or that city’s UHF station. (A UHF channel usually offered a weak signal and was the blurriest place on your TV dial, a sort of annex for cartoons and reruns of old movies. The farther from the city you lived, the shakier the signal. Worse, not all TV sets were UHF-compatible in 1966; you were out of luck with an older model and wouldn’t see the fight unless the TV at your local bar had a UHF tuner.) The arrangement for Griffith- Tiger to be shown this way was a small step toward getting boxing back in America’s living rooms, and by fight night there were 63 cities airing the contest. Though it had only been a few years, the media acted as if this was the first televised fight in decades. “There will be a lot of young people watching their first fight tonight,” reported the Hartford Courant. The consensus was that if Griffith and Tiger put on a good showing, boxing might return to home television.
RKO General, a broadcasting powerhouse with many radio and TV stations under its banner, spared no expense on the fight. They offered it in color, which wasn’t a given for fights in those days. Then they installed that old warhorse Don Dunphy in the commentator’s seat, his voice familiar to those who had enjoyed boxing on TV in the 1950s. In the end, RKO General’s investment paid off. By the next year, their distribution of the Muhammad Ali-Zora Folley fight
reached 150 stations. The increasing interest, however, was not thanks to Tiger-Griffith. Of course, Griffith and Tiger should’ve worked. They were the cream of the business, with Tiger winning The Ring’s Fighter of the Year award in 1962 and ’65, and Griffith taking the honors in 1964. Additionally, their styles almost guaranteed an all- action thriller. Griffith was known as a tireless fighter who crowded opponents, while Tiger was tough as granite.
Griffith, though, changed his style for Tiger and resorted to more movement, much to the displeasure of the customers and most along press row. The head- to-head slugfest they’d expected was a monotonous battle of flicking jabs, with Griffith circling and Tiger trudging forward, as Smith described, like “an old man, a brave old man with only one style and no imagination.” As disappointing as the fight may have been, and as unpopular as the decision proved to be, there was even more controversy once the bout ended. Since commission rules prevented a fighter from owning more than
heavyweight champion Jose Torres. This was viewed as a farewell for Tiger, the gallant old soldier who was supposedly shopworn as he neared 40, while Torres was looking ahead to perhaps challenging Ali for the heavyweight title. Yet things went awry on December 16, 1966, with Tiger pounding out a 15-round decision and ripping Torres’ title away. This was an even bigger upset than when Griffith had defeated Tiger eight months earlier. Tiger and Griffith eventually had their rematch, but not until 1970, when both were beyond their best. Tiger had lost his light heavyweight title to Bob Foster,
“There will be a lot of young people watching their first fight tonight,” reported the Hartford Courant. The consensus was that if Griffith and Tiger put on a good showing, boxing might return to home television.
one title at a time, it was assumed Griffith would abandon either his welterweight title or his newly acquired middleweight title. Yet Griffith vowed in his dressing room that he intended to keep and defend both. He said he’d shed too much blood and sweat to just toss aside his welterweight belt – indeed, Benny “Kid” Paret had died in 1962 after a bout with Griffith over that very strap – and he’d have his lawyers argue the case in court. The irony was that Griffith had signed for the fight after agreeing to vacate the welterweight title in the event of him winning. Now, as the Griffith camp screamed for lawyers – even appearing before the state supreme court, though failing to overturn the rule – they appeared silly. As broke as he was, Griffith probably wanted both belts so he could increase his income with more title fights. When the two fighters attended a press conference the day after the bout, Tiger offered the usual feeble argument about the challenger having to “take” the title away from the champion, an old line that is not an official rule, though some people swear by it. Tiger added that he knew he was in trouble when he saw no judges from his home country. “But being a stranger [in New York], I have no choice but to accept it,” he said.
Griffith responded by saying he was a stranger, too. “I’m from Weehawken, New Jersey,” Griffith said, which made Tiger laugh. “Who are you kidding?” said the ex-champion. Tiger had a point. Griffith was a Garden favorite with a history of winning close decisions there. Teddy Brenner, the Garden matchmaker, addressed his constant use of Griffith in his 1981 memoir, Only the Ring was Square . He spent several pages denying he had any control over the fighter or his contract. “I used him so often,” Brenner wrote, “people started to say I cut in on his earnings.” Brenner knew what people were saying, and Tiger did, too. But for Tiger to depict himself as an outsider was inaccurate. He had fought at the Garden nine times since 1959 and had also fought in New York’s St. Nicholas Arena. He was hardly a “stranger” in New York boxing circles. Griffith did the polite thing by offering Tiger a rematch, but their bout had been too dreary to warrant an immediate sequel. Instead, the Garden brain trust felt Griffith’s next opponent should be Joey Archer, an Irish American contender with a strong New York following who had defeated Tiger a few years earlier. Tiger, meanwhile, was slotted for a bout later in 1966 with light
while Griffith had lost, regained and lost again the middleweight title to Nino Benvenuti. Before another Garden audience that was just over half the size of the turnout in 1966, Griffith won a 10-round decision. The contest was another dud. Newsday called it “a gym session rather than a fight.” Why couldn’t Tiger and Griffith, two all-time greats, generate a spark of electricity between them? A clue could be found in something Griffith said after their rematch. Apparently, he’d been warned for talking during the bout, but he claimed he’d only been encouraging Tiger to be more aggressive. “Let’s fight,” he said. “We can still be friends.” Though Tiger denied any such things were said, Griffith insisted he had to goad Tiger into fighting harder. Quickly, their post-fight chatter dissolved into playful teasing, with Tiger accusing Griffith of hitting him in the groin and not apologizing. Had a friendship caused their bouts to be so tepid? Years later, Griffith revealed to author Peter Heller that he’d known Tiger for a long time before they fought, having been his sparring partner when Tiger made his debut in New York. “He was a heck of a man,” Griffith said, “and a good fighter, too.” This, at last, was something everyone could agree on.
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