With Paret as the reigning champion, Griffith was heavily favored by Vegas oddsmakers as a 2:7 favorite to win and recapture the Welterweight title.

Contemporary newspaper reports described the exchange without being specific about the insult, but did say that when asked afterward to pose with Paret for photos, that Griffith replied, "I'd better not.

[4] Griffith would come out as bisexual in his later years, but in 1962 allegations of homosexuality were considered fatal to an athlete's career and a particularly grievous insult in the culture both fighters came from.

[6] After the sixth round Griffith's trainer, Gil Clancy, later said he told him, "When you go inside I want you to keep punching until Paret holds you or the referee breaks you!

"[8] Seconds later, Griffith backed Paret into the corner and unleashed a massive flurry of punches to the champion's head.

Referee Ruby Goldstein explained what he was seeing, "From long experience in boxing I have seen on numerous occasions boxers deliberately put their heads a little out of the ring and this sometimes can be used as sort of a means of avoiding getting hit cleanly.

[10] Manuel Alfaro, Paret's manager, was criticized for not retiring his boxer with a timely throwing in of the towel at this point in the bout.

[13] Immediately after the referee intervened, Paret, who had remained on his feet throughout, slowly slid to the floor and collapsed in the corner (initially thought to be from exhaustion).

"[14] Dunphy then introduced what has in hindsight been cited as the first use of instant replay in United States television history, asking a clearly uncomfortable Griffith to walk through the bout's final seconds with him in detail.

Paret, never having regained consciousness after the fight, died ten days later at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan from massive brain hemorrhaging.

It is theorized that one of the reasons Paret died was that he was vulnerable due to the beatings he took in his previous three fights, all of which happened within twelve months of each other.

[17] Though officially cleared of wrongdoing by the New York State Athletic Commission, Goldstein let his license to referee fights lapse.

[19] Professional boxing would not be televised on a regular basis again after that decline until the 1970s and was only rarely aired in prime time until the following decade, and then not frequently on major networks.

[7] This fight, and the widespread publicity and criticism of boxing which accompanied it, became the basis of the 2005 documentary Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story.