Hector "Macho" Camacho, Boxer, Dies at 50

USMagazine, Saturday, November 24, 2012, 9:45am (PST)

Puerto Rican boxer Hector "Macho" Camacho died Saturday, Nov. 24, after being shot in the face four days earlier. He was 50 years old.

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Doctors at the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan, where Camacho was being treated, initially expected the fighter to survive his injuries, but on Wednesday, he suffered a heart attack and was declared brain dead. He had another heart attack on Saturday morning, shortly before being taken off life support at the request of his family.

The shooting occurred on Tuesday, Nov. 20. Camacho and a companion were parked in front of a store in his hometown of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, when two gunmen pulled up next to them in an SUV. A bullet aimed at the boxer's face was deflected by his jaw and made its way to his spinal cord; his friend, a former fighter named Adrian Mojica Moreno, was also shot and died a short time later.

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Born in Puerto Rico but raised in New York, Camacho became famous in the 1980s and '90s, during which time he fought in 88 professional bouts against boxers such as Oscar de la Hoya and Sugar Ray Leonard. Outside the ring, he struggled with drug and alcohol problems and tangled with the law, at one point getting sentenced to prison for the burglary of a computer store in Mississippi. On the night he was shot, police found nine bags of cocaine in Moreno’s pockets and one open in the car.

Authorities said that two men fled the scene in the SUV but that no arrests had been made.

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Hector "Macho" Camacho, Boxer, Dies at 50