Griffith Could Have Used a Real Hurricane Warning

All you have to do is look at his record and see that he stopped the great Emile Griffith in 2 minutes 13 seconds of the first round in December 1963 to know that Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was a contender.

Of course, we are speaking about the give-no-quarter world of boxing. So, one month past the 36th anniversary of that stunning upset at Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena, a spokesman for the losing side is claiming that it could never have happened again.

“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, my guy wins,” says Gil Glancy, Griffith’s trainer.

But our question is about the only time Carter and Griffith actually did meet, and Clancy’s answer is that his guy would have won that one too--if only he had listened to Clancy.

“Rubin Carter was a real good offensive fighter, a very good puncher,” he says. “But he was a little muscle-bound and had trouble lifting his arms when he got tired. I told Emile, ‘Hang in there for five or six rounds and, after that, you’ll own him.’

“So what happens? Emile runs into Rocky Graziano in the gym a couple of days before the fight, and Rocky tells him, ‘You’ll knock this bum out in one round.’ ”

Griffith tried, until Carter caught him with a left hook to the mid-section that knocked the wind out of him. Griffith clinched, but Carter stepped back and fired a left hook to the temple.

Griffith was up at the count of eight, then down again. The referee stopped the fight.

“I was very happy,” says Clancy, who a year and a half before had watched from the corner as Griffith pummeled Benny “Kid” Paret to death. “Emile would have taken a lot more punishment.

“I told him later, ‘You don’t trade punches with Rubin Carter. He can knock out anybody, even a horse. But maybe next time you’ll listen to me instead of Rocky Graziano.’ ”

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A black-and-white re-creation of the Carter-Griffith fight opens “The Hurricane.” The movie is critically acclaimed, especially for Denzel Washington’s performance as Carter, and has put the former boxer in the public consciousness more than at any time since the release of Bob Dylan’s 1976 ballad, “Hurricane.”

The movie is about the fight of Carter and others to have his 1966 conviction for a triple murder in his hometown of Paterson, N.J., overturned. After 19 years in prison, he succeeded in federal court.

It is a compelling movie and would have been even if the screenwriters had relied strictly on facts. As it is, Selwyn Raab, who covered Carter’s trials and tribulations for the New York Times, called it “history contorted for dramatic effect.”

As might be expected, those in the boxing world who know Carter don’t have much opinion on the legal aspects. Given a choice between Don King, who went to prison, and Bob Arum, who went to law school, they would call it a draw. Everyone I spoke to believes in Carter’s innocence, but they recognized his capacity for violence.

The mellow and affable Carter who discovered inner peace in prison and runs the Assn. for the Defense of the Wrongly Accused in Toronto is not exactly the Carter they knew.

He could be like that. Clancy said he played pool with him and liked him. Boxing publicist Bill Caplan, who worked Carter’s fight against Clarence James in 1964 at the Sports Arena, said he was charming and articulate. They both said that intimidation was part of his offensive arsenal. With his shaved head greased with Vaseline, thick goatee and searing stare, he was considered the middleweight Sonny Liston.

But, as with Liston, Clancy said that Carter’s demeanor wasn’t entirely for effect. He could be dangerous, especially when he mixed alcohol with his volatile temper, and he spent four years in prison for assault and robbery even before his murder conviction. You won’t hear about that in the movie.

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If boxing people have a quarrel with the movie, though, it is in its interpretation of the 1964 middleweight title fight in Philadelphia between Carter and champion Joey Giardello.

No one doubts that Carter was better than his 28-12-1 record and deserved a title shot after his victory over Griffith. Bruce Trampler, Top Rank’s matchmaker, believes Carter would have been a champion today because there are more weight classes. Then, he fought as an undersized middleweight.

He presumably would also be Hollywood’s champion because the movie shows him dominating Giardello, then losing a unanimous decision presumably because of racism.

People who saw the fight either in person or on film contend that the decision wasn’t that controversial. Trampler said Giardello won despite several threatening flurries by Carter. Others say Giardello won as many as 10 of the 15 rounds. Even Carter’s authorized biography, “Hurricane,” says “ . . . challengers typically have to beat a champ decisively to win a decision, and Carter didn’t.”

Giardello has hired a lawyer and is considering suing the filmmaker for defamation. I would recommend a rematch, except that Carter, 62, no longer likes boxing because, he says, it’s barbaric.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.