World middleweight title · 1971
Monzón makes his case at Luna Park
Emile Griffith had been a world champion three times and had almost never been stopped. In Buenos Aires, in front of his own people, Carlos Monzón stopped him.
Carlos Monzón won the world middleweight title in Rome, not Buenos Aires. In November 1970 he knocked out Nino Benvenuti in the 12th round there, and six months later he beat Benvenuti again in Monte Carlo, where the Italian's corner threw in the towel in the third. Both wins had come in Europe.
So the defence against Emile Griffith at Luna Park in September 1971 put him in front of his own public as champion, and against an opponent who would test whether the Benvenuti wins meant what they seemed to.
The opponent
Griffith, from the Virgin Islands, had been a world champion three times, and in all his years at the top only one man had stopped him. Beating him on points would have been an achievement. Stopping him was something else.
Monzón did it gradually. The WBC's account of the fight describes Griffith offering "very brave resistance" before he was "finally overwhelmed". The end came in the 14th round, when the Mexican referee, Ramón Berúmen, stepped in. Monzón became only the second man to stop Griffith.
It did not settle every argument. The two met again in June 1973 in Monte Carlo, and this time Griffith went the full 15 rounds and ran Monzón close on the cards. Monzón won the decision, but it was one of the harder nights of his reign.
The reign
By then there was not much left to prove. Monzón made 14 successful defences against 11 different opponents and held the title for seven years. He lost three times in his whole career, all of them early, and he avenged every one. He retired in 1977, after his second win over Rodrigo Valdez, as undefeated champion, having gone unbeaten in 80 fights.
The record reads like the career of a man who never had a difficult night. Luna Park suggests otherwise: Griffith took him deep into the championship rounds before he broke.
The rest of the story
Monzón's life after boxing cannot be left out of any honest account of him. In 1988 he was convicted of killing his wife, Alicia Muñiz, in Mar del Plata, and sentenced to 11 years in prison. On 8 January 1995, returning to jail after a weekend release, he was killed in a car crash. He was 52.
He remains one of the finest middleweights there has been, and the night he stopped Griffith in front of his own country was the moment he proved it at home.