Emile Griffith's Great 5: When Fernandez fell asleep

Emile Griffith's Great 5: When Fernandez fell asleep

The knockout success against Jose Fernandez

Emil Griffith is a great boxer who started his professional career at the age of 19. At an extremely young age, his coach Jill Clancy saw his exceptional talent and threw him into the deep end, from where the athlete born in the US Virgin Islands quickly managed to surface. The beginning of his journey is more than promising and from his first matches Griffith has shown that he is ready to dominate his opponents and show them the power of his shot. Emil has been involved in a number of brilliant matches, and in a five-part series we look back at the best of them. We've already shared the successes over Benny Parrett, Nino Benvenuti, and Dick Tiger, who are, respectively, number one, two, and three in our rankings. Now we will return again to the tragic 1962, at the end of which Griffith achieved one of his rare successes with a knockout after the death of Kid Parrett.

Many fans of Emil and experts in the sport are of the opinion that because of the death of Paret after the match between them, the boxer can never again relax as much as possible and hit his opponents with all the power at his disposal. That is why his successes are not so convincing. This is evident from the first matches after the tragic events in March 1962. However, already in December of the same year, Griffith managed to defeat one of the best competitors in his category, Jorge Fernandez.

The Argentine is a contender for the titles that Emil holds. These are the belts of the World Boxing Association and the World Boxing Council in the welterweight category. The match between them takes place at the Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada and does not imply huge intrigue, but rather easy dominance and success without much effort on the part of the world champion. At least the initial expectation is that in the third match between these two competitors, Griffith will be the clear winner.

And that's not far from the truth. From the first round it was clear who was the more aggressive and powerful of the two, even though Fernandez was a kilogram heavier than his opponent. This has absolutely no impact and it is a real miracle that the Argentine does not fall in the ring after the sixth round. It was only in the seventh part that Griffith managed to knock down his implacable opponent, and this turned out to be the turning point in the match.

She continues for almost two more rounds. In the eighth, a visibly shaken Fernandez tried to take the maximum risk and deliver a fatal blow to the champion, but it looked as if Griffith's defense was also working perfectly on the night in question. In the ninth part, another heavy blow suffered by the contender for the title means the end of the match. However, after the blow, Fernandez remained on his feet and was given by the match referee five minutes in which to recover and the match to continue.

This did not happen, and based on the results in the judges' cards, Emil Griffith was declared the winner by unanimous decision. Curiously, at least 3 of the rounds were awarded to the Argentinian, who still managed to land enough hits to the head and body of his opponent. The technical knockout by referee Harry Krause was recorded in the first minute and 34 seconds of the ninth round. Griffith manages to retain his world titles and it does so with ease. It's another question whether Fernandez wouldn't have tried to fight back more seriously if the fight had gone all 15 rounds, but it's far more likely that the fight would have ended with a TKO at a later stage.

After the end of the fight, the doctor responsible for the condition of the Argentine challenger, Doctor Donald Romeo, said that during the 5-minute break, Fernandez told him that he had absolutely no strength to continue the match and did not think of trying.

Even without giving it his all and showing all his power, Emile Griffith has a solid success against one of the most serious contenders for his world welterweight titles. It just goes to show that the US Virgin Islands boxer's career could have turned out very differently and he could be talked about as one of the greatest of all time.