Griffin, Eric (boxer)

Eric Griffin was born on November 3, 1967 in Lafayette , Louisiana , USA .

Amateur career

For the first time declared itself in 1986, becoming the bronze medalist of the US championship in the standings of the first lightweight category. A year later, he won the national Golden Gloves tournament.

The first serious success at the international level was achieved in the 1989 season, when he entered the main team of the American national team and then won first place at the World Championships in Moscow .

In 1990, the flyweight was the best at the Goodwill Games in Seattle , in particular, he took over the strong Soviet boxers Nshan Munchyan and Anatoly Filippov . In addition, he added to the track record a gold award received at the World Cup in India.

In 1991, he became the US boxing champion among amateurs and won the gold medal at the world championships in Sydney , where, like last time, he defeated Cuban Rogelio Marcelo in the final ^[1] .

Thanks to a series of successful performances, Eric Griffin won the right to defend the honor of the country at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona , was considered here as the main favorite in the category up to 48 kg. As a result, he successfully passed the first opponent in the tournament grid, but in the second fight with a close 5: 6 was defeated by Spaniard Raphael Lozano . This result turned out to be one of the most controversial at these Games, since in reality each of the five judges gave Griffin more precise shots - the American boxer became the victim of a new electronic scoring system, which counted the athlete a point only if all five judges pressed on button at the same time. The American side filed an official protest with the International Boxing Association , but it was rejected ^[2] .

Professional career

Immediately after the end of the Berlin Olympics, Griffin left the location of the American national team and in October 1992, successfully made his debut on a professional level. During the year, won ten wins in a row.

In November 1993, he quit boxing with Mexican Marcos Pacheco (23-6-2) for the vacant champion title of the North American Boxing Federation (NABF) in the first lightweight category, but after the sixth round due to dislocation of the shoulder, he was forced to abandon the fight and most suffered the first professional career defeat. A few months later, in a re-fight, Griffin still won against Pacheco by unanimous judicial decision and took the championship belt for himself.

Subsequently, he twice defended his title and won one rating match. In December 1994, in the challenger's bout the World Boxing Association (WBA) met Panamanian Carlos Murillo (26-2) and lost to him by technical knockout in the ninth round.

In 1995, he regained the title of NABF champion in the first flyweight division and defended it once. He lost his title in April 1996, having suffered a knockout defeat from the Mexican Jesus Cheong (28-7).

The last time he boxed at a professional level in May 1997, again lost ahead of schedule to Jesús Chong, while the vacant world title in the first lightweight champion according to the World Boxing Organization (WBO) was at stake. In total, I held 20 fights in pro-ring, 16 of them won (including 13 ahead of schedule) and 4 lost.

• Eric Griffin (Eng.) - statistics of professional fights on the site BoxRec
• Eric Griffin - Olympic statistics on Sports-Reference.com (English)