Shadowboxer

By James Poniewozik

Emile Griffith is an old man now, but his round face lights up like a child's when he puts on his old boxing robe. He does not look like someone who would kill a man with his hands. But that's exactly what he did the night of March 24, 1962, during a televised boxing match against welterweight champion Benny Paret. Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, a documentary from Dan Klores and Ron Berger (USA, April 20, 9 p.m. E.T.), searingly remembers a contest that crossed the invisible line into a killing.

At the weigh-in, Paret, a Cuban immigrant, called Griffith "maricon"--a Spanish slur for homosexual and an allusion to rumors that Griffith was gay. Griffith does not reveal his sexual orientation, but, he says calmly, "I wasn't nobody's faggot." In the 12th round, he trapped Paret in the corner and unleashed a brutal flurry of uppercuts to his head. Norman Mailer likened the barrage to "a baseball bat demolishing a pumpkin." Paret died 10 days later.

The death led to the end of televised fights for years. (It's a history lesson for anyone decrying the chaperoned stunts on Fear Factor as a dangerous new low.) And Griffith could never shake the ghastly image of Paret slumped in his corner. Ring of Fire never really reveals what he was thinking as he flailed away on Paret, but it ends in tearful closure as he meets Paret's son for the first time. A gracefully told story of sport, sexuality and contrition, Ring of Fire is an emotional knockout. --By James Poniewozik