Boxing story for the ages

griffith_photo_hat‘I kill a man and most people forgive me. However, I love a man and many say this makes me an evil person.’ – Emile Griffith.

It’s always struck me as a little odd that when mention is made of South Africa’s finest writers, the name Donald McRae never comes up.

There are probably a number of reasons for this, one of which is likely the mistaken assumption that he’s a sports writer rather than a real writer. You know, he writes about stuff that doesn’t really matter.

The other is that he lives in England and has cultivated a career over there, so he isn’t really one of us.

I would venture, too, that his work isn’t as well-known locally because his writing isn’t narrow enough. He writes for, and with, a world view.

It’s true that McRae earns his daily crust as a sports writer for The Guardian – his big-read interviews are gold – but his interests are broad. He has had 10 books published, some of them beyond the sports realm. These include Every Second Counts: The Race to Transplant the First Human Heart, The Great Trials of Clarence Darrow, Nothing Personal (The Business of Sex) and Under Our Skin, the story of growing up in apartheid South Africa. Each was warmly acclaimed.

Twice he has won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, a staggering achievement in a market as vibrant as the UK, and he enjoys a reputation for being one of the most perspicacious of writers. He has an eye for detail that is as sharp as his writing.

I was thrilled when Donald made contact and promised to send me his latest work, A Man’s World. To say it is the story of a fighter is rather like saying Muhammad Ali could box a bit. A Man’s World, about five-time former world champion Emile Griffith, is one of the most remarkable stories of our time.

Griffith fought more championship rounds than any boxer in history and could be brutal and punishing. He was also gay. And he once killed an opponent.

1297953568

The world is a far different place to how it was in the 1960s and Griffith could never quite be himself, more so because he excelled in the most macho of worlds, the boxing ring. Yet, among the gays and transvestites of New York, where he lived, he felt best. They adored and celebrated their secret hero.

Homosexuality was so suppressed that even the sports writers of the day chose to tip-toe around it. There were whispers, but few dared to openly write about Paret’s sexual preferences. When one did, a priggish sub-editor altered a reference to Griffith as a “homosexual” to “unman”; whatever that meant.

What makes this book a gem is that it’s far more than a book about boxing. Tragedy courses through almost every page on account of Griffith being involved in one of boxing’s most high profile ring deaths, with Benny “Kid” Paret dying at the end of his fists.

It haunted Griffith until his dying days a few years ago, yet the contradiction was that the coarse Paret humiliated him, openly calling him maricon (“faggot”) and feigning homosexual sex at the weigh-in. Griffith ought to have despised him, but any sense of vengeance disappeared the moment Paret slipped into his coma. Griffith was devastated. Years later, he was moved to tears upon meeting Paret’s son (see video below).

Griffith fought on for more than a decade, packing in another 79 fights, but there was no question that he often held back for fear of what might happen.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the book covers Griffith’s fight in 1960 with Willie Toweel, one of the scions of South Africa’s great boxing family. It was the last fight of Toweel’s storied career. There was enormous respect between the pair, friendship even, and Toweel’s heartfelt letter to Griffith in the aftermath of the Paret tragedy is tribute to the South African’s supreme dignity. Toweel could feel Griffiths’ pain, having once killed an opponent himself.

Willie is 81 now and still lives in Randburg, but sadly he suffers from dementia, as did Griffith, a consequence of taking thousands of punches to the head.

The writer also tells the story of Griffiths’ visit to SA in 1975, a visit that struck a young McRae in a very real, visceral way. Griffiths was long past his best when he came to fight Elijah “Tap Tap” Makhathini in Soweto. South Africa’s bizarre policies at the time meant that Gil Clancy, Griffiths’ trainer, couldn’t accompany his fighter to Soweto.

In that case, said Griffith (who had been anointed an “honorary white” by the apartheid government), he wouldn’t fight. The Nats quickly buckled and Clancy was one of the few white faces allowed at the fight.

The story of Griffiths’ early years is remarkable and poignantly captured. It takes in him being sexually molested and, later, being discovered when working as a women’s hat-maker.

McRae is fortunate because the Griffiths’ narrative is so compelling; it demanded to be told. His secret, though, was in taking such care with research and writing that the detail is searing and gives the book a rare gravitas.

His first boxing book, Dark Trade, was a classic. A Man’s World is another, gloriously told.