Word: paretic
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...name Kid Rapidez and the Cuban flyweight title. After losing only eight of nearly 200 fights, the Kid retired and became a trainer at Havana's National Academy of Boxing. There he groomed such classy fighters as former Welterweight Champions Luis Rodriguez and the late Benny ("Kid") Paret. When Fidel Castro banned professional sports in Cuba, Rapidez moved to Mexico City in 1960 and married one of the country's few lady matadors. There he developed Ultiminio ("Sugar") Ramos into the world featherweight champion in 1963. Six years later, he guided Nápoles to the welterweight crown...
...amateur and professional bouts. And he also had the crowd. Madison Square Garden was awash with Italian flags and posters pleading DAGLIELA ALLA PANZZA! (Freely: Paste him in the belly!) But Griffith, 29, was the tough ex-street fighter from the Virgin Islands who had killed Benny Paret in the ring, won the welterweight championship three times before taking the middleweight title from Nigeria's Dick Tiger last year. On the strength of that, he was called by experts "the best boxer, pound for pound, in the world...
...fighter," he says. "I wanted to be a baseball player. This is a funny business. The guy you're hitting hasn't done anything to you, but you have to hit him anyway." Three years ago, Griffith lost his temper in the ring-when Benny Paret noted Emile's tight pants and his singsong Virgin Islands speech and questioned his masculinity. Paret died of brain injuries in that fight, and Griffith has brooded ever since over the massacre. "I try to think it was fate," he says. "I try real hard. But I always know that...
...Lazy!" The ghost of Benny Paret obviously was still with Champion Griffith last week. Madison Square Garden was packed with fans from Spanish Harlem to watch Griffith defend his crown against Challenger José Stable and Puerto Rico's José Torres battle Willie Pastrano for the light-heavyweight championship in a rare doubleheader. Like Paret, Stable was a Cuban, and the chants started-"Sta-ble! Stable! Sta-ble!"-as soon as the challenger clambered into the ring. Emile got mostly boos except from ringside, where Mama Emelda Griffith and Cousin Bernie led the cheers. "The best, the best...
Griffith's punches helped to hold him up. When neurosurgeons got to Paret, they drilled holes in his skull and removed as many hematomas as they could reach, but it was too late. The bruising, for which they could do nothing, and the pressure of the hematomas had crushed too much of the brain's structure and killed too many of its delicate, irreparable nerve cells...