SAN JUAN: Puerto Rican boxing great Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho, shot in the head last week, was declared dead yesterday after being removed from a respirator, a doctor said.
His death brings a tragic end to a career that saw Camacho triumph in three weight classes but struggle with drugs and alcohol.
Highlights of his career included wins over legends such as Roberto Duran of Panama and American fighter Sugar Ray Leonard, whom Camacho knocked out in five rounds.
Camacho, who was 50, suffered a heart attack overnight Friday and doctors later disconnected him from life support equipment, said Dr. Ernesto Torres, director of Centro Medico de Rio Piedras, where the boxer was admitted after being shot Tuesday.
“There was nothing else we could do for him,” Torres said.
Camacho had been declared brain dead on Thursday. His relatives were informed as soon as he was taken off life support yesterday, the doctor said.
Camacho’s mother, Maria Matias, said Friday she accepted the doctors’ opinion that the three-time world champion could not recover.
The ex-fighter was shot on Tuesday while in a car in San Juan outside a liquor store. The boxer’s driver, Alberto Mojica Moreno, 49, was also killed.
It is not known if they were deliberately targeted or simply caught up in a random act of violence. The bullet damaged three arteries in Camacho’s neck, crippling the flow of blood to his brain.
Camacho was one of the most colorful boxers of the 1980s, winning world titles at super lightweight, lightweight and light welterweight. AFP
