This became a pattern. According to Gonzalez, Macho would accept a fight only to go off the rails beforehand. It made him the pride of Spanish Harlem at a time when the neighborhood was plagued by violence and drugs.
He would cruise around in expensive sports cars, shake hands and instill aspirational hope. In , the boxer beat Sugar Ray Leonard in five rounds, pushing the legend into retirement. He filled the void with drugs. There were multiple run-ins with the law, including an arrest for cocaine and assault after he attacked a juvenile who he thought had flipped him the — bird and a burglary charge when, drunk, he fell through the ceiling of a Mississippi repair shop while trying to retrieve his computer.
In he was arrested for physically assaulting his teen son, one of his four kids. Family and friends urged him to return to New York. On Nov. Authorities reportedly found nine bags of cocaine in the vehicle. The friend died immediately, while Macho — with a bullet lodged in his shoulder and restricting blood flow to his brain — was rushed to a hospital. For a while doctors thought he might recover but be paralyzed. His casket was paraded through East Harlem by horse-drawn carriage before he was laid to rest at St.
Two suspects were cleared in , and the murder case sat stagnant for years. Contact The Author Name required. Email required. But that's when things started to unravel. According to Ryan, Camacho was "completely out of his mind drug-wise" and threatened to jump out of his hotel room window. The next day, Camacho stepped into the ring as if nothing occurred and blasted Montes in a first-round knockout. Camacho , 38 KOs won his first world title later that year, stopping Rafael Limon in the fifth round to capture the WBC super featherweight crown.
When his bout with Edwin Rosario came around in June , Camacho was one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport with his speed and willingness to stand and bang in the pocket. No one could deal with what he brought whenever he stepped through the ropes. Camacho won by split decision to defend his WBC lightweight title for the first time and run his record to with 15 knockouts.
As Drath correctly stated in the documentary, the Rosario victory made Camacho the biggest name in boxing, but it also arguably represented the height of his powers. Rosario wobbled Camacho with a left hook and landed numerous power punches. Not wanting to go through that again, Camacho adopted a safety-first approach and used his speed, which upset a lot of fans. At the time, Camacho was everywhere. He was featured in every major publication and had even met then-President Ronald Reagan.
You had Muhammad Ali, of course. Sugar Ray Leonard to an extent. Tyson had that ability that people just marveled at. He was different, and he just didn't care. Who he was inside of the ring was who he was outside of the ring. That charm and charisma helped him in the beginning as people perhaps enabled him a little more than they might have another person who committed the crimes he did.
But his talent saved his butt, too. Their comments were part of the Showtime documentary " Macho: The Hector Camacho Story ," which debuted Friday night and takes an unflinching look at Camacho's turbulent career, life and death.
With interviews with friends, family members, boxing luminaries and law enforcement officers in Puerto Rico, former journalist and two-time Emmy Award-winner Eric Drath directed the film, which chronicles Camacho's delinquent childhood in New York's Spanish Harlem, his meteoric rise in the boxing world and the personal demons that eventually led to his murder in Those demons — drug and alcohol abuse, run-ins with the law — are on full display in the documentary, which airs on Showtime and all Showtime On Demand platforms.
At one point in the film, Gonzalez describes waking up from a nap during a car ride with Camacho from California to Florida only to find out the car Camacho is driving is approaching the U. The problem? Camacho tells Gonzalez, "I've got a little present in the trunk": a kilo of cocaine. Camacho's antics cause enough of a commotion that border patrol allows them to do a U-turn and leave despite the presence of drug-sniffing dogs. The incident prompts Camacho to eventually stop the car and bury the cocaine on the side of the highway, only to come back later and spend all night trying to dig it back up.
I don't want to talk to him for a year. Amy would eventually divorce Camacho because she said she knew his destructive behavior "was never going to stop. He blatantly said, 'I like it. I love it. You met me like this and I'm going to stay like this. The film opens with Drath saying, "of all the boxers I've known none were as unforgettable as Hector Camacho.
0コメント