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AN ALL OUT BRAWL AT HECTOR CAMACHO’S FUNERAL!
The funeral of boxing legend Hector 'Macho' Camacho erupted into chaos after a fight broke out between a woman claiming to be his girlfriend, a former lover and his sisters.
Family, fans and fellow boxers had gathered in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Tuesday to say goodbye to the slain former world champion fighter, known for his flamboyance in and out of the ring.
The brawl broke out after 28-year-old Cynthia Castillo, dressed in a pink T-shirt emblazoned with Camacho's face, leaned down to kiss his body in the open casket.
She then walked into an area reserved for family - causing tensions to spill over with the boxer's sisters and former lover, 50-year-old Gloria Fernandez.
The scuffle migrated outside the memorial service, followed by a pack of journalists brandishing camera phones and police who separated the women.
Miss Castillo said she was the boxer's girlfriend before he died, calling him 'my partner, my friend, my brother', according to El Nuevo Dia.
Police urged the young woman to leave the scene while the sisters returned to the service.
There were emotional scenes throughout the day as members of Camacho's immediate family approached the coffin.
The boxer's mother Maria Matias wept and caressed her son's face in the coffin, which was draped in a Puerto Rican flag. 'They killed him,' she wailed at one point.
Hundreds of people filed past Camacho's open casket, displayed inside a gymnasium decked out for the occasion with black carpet and curtains.
The boxer wore white, along with a large gold crucifix and a necklace spelling out his nickname, 'Macho,' in capital letters.
Camacho was shot on November 20 while sitting in a parked car with a friend outside a bar in his hometown of Bayamon. The friend died at the scene and the boxer three days later after doctors removed him from life support.
Police have said they have suspects but have not yet arrested anyone for the shooting.
After the family, came a cross-section of Puerto Rican society that included parents with young children, the elderly, road crew workers in neon safety vests, U.S. soldiers in uniform and a who's who of Puerto Rican boxers.
'Everybody loved him here in Puerto Rico,' said Henry Neumann, the secretary of the U.S. island territory's sports and recreation department.
'He is one of those athletes who transcended the barriers of his country not only for his skill inside the ring but for his personality.'
Camacho, who was 50 when he died, left Puerto Rico as a child and moved to New York.
He went on to win super lightweight, lightweight and junior welterweight world titles in the 1980s and fought high-profile bouts against Felix Trinidad, Julio Cesar Chavez and Sugar Ray Leonard. He had a career record of 79-6-3 and was a showman in the ring, chanting 'It's Macho time' before fights and wearing garish jewelry.
He battled drug and alcohol problems throughout his life and had frequent run-ins with police.
He was sentenced in 2007 to seven years in prison for the burglary of a computer store in Mississippi. While arresting him on the burglary charge in January 2005, police also found the drug ecstasy.
A judge eventually suspended all but one year of the sentence and gave Camacho probation. He wound up serving two weeks in jail, though, after violating that probation.
When he was shot, police found an open package of cocaine in the car and nine unopened packages on his friend.
A police officer in Bayamon, Raul Nazario, recalled at the wake how he saw Camacho one day and drove over in his squad car to greet him, but the boxer fled. Later, out of uniform, the officer said he ran into him again and they exchanged a laugh and Camacho posed with him for a photo.
'For Puerto Rican people he was something great,' Nazario said.
Many of those in attendance had similar personal encounters.
Doris Correa, a 71-year-old from the town of Vega Baja, showed a photo she took of Camacho in the 1980s, when her family and his happened to be camping in the same campground in the island's southwest. At one point, he grabbed a microphone, declared 'it's Macho time,' and began singing for everyone.
'Back then, we didn't know what karaoke was,' she said. 'He invented it.'
Boxer Juan Manuel 'Juanma' Lopez, one of several dozen fighters on hand to say goodbye, recalled Camacho's dazzling speed in the ring.
'He was definitely a showman,' he said. 'It was something grandiose.'
The memorial and wake was scheduled to last two days. Family members have not yet announced the location and date of the funeral. His lawyer, Linda George, told Radio Isla 1320 that it would be in New York.
Shot while sitting in a parked car outside a bar Tuesday with a friend in the city of Bayamon, he was declared dead at the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan.
Originally from Bayamon, just outside San Juan, Camacho was long regarded as a flashy if volatile talent, a skilled boxer who was perhaps overshadowed by his longtime foil, Mexican superstar Julio Cesar Chavez, who would beat him in a long-awaited showdown in Las Vegas in 1992.
'This is something I've done all my life, you know?' Camacho told The Associated Press after a workout in 2010. 'A couple years back, when I was doing it, I was still enjoying it. The competition, to see myself perform. I know I'm at the age that some people can't do this no more.'
Camacho's family moved to New York when he was young and he grew up in Spanish Harlem, which at the time was rife with crime. Camacho landed in jail as a teenager before turning to boxing, which for many kids in his neighborhood provided an outlet for their aggression.
Former featherweight champion Juan Laporte, a friend since childhood, described Camacho as 'like a little brother who was always getting into trouble,' but otherwise combined a friendly nature with a powerful jab.
'He's a good human being, a good-hearted person,' Laporte said as he waited with other friends and members of the boxer's family outside the hospital in San Juan after the shooting. 'A lot of people think of him as a cocky person but that was his motto ... inside he was just a kid looking for something.'
Laporte lamented that Camacho never found a mentor outside the boxing ring.
'The people around him didn't have the guts or strength to lead him in the right direction,' Laporte said. 'There was no one strong enough to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him how to do it.'
Camacho's former wife, Amy, obtained a restraining order against him in 1998, alleging he threatened her and one of their children. The couple, who had two children at the time, later divorced.
He divided his time between Puerto Rico and Florida in recent years, appearing on Spanish-language television as well as on a reality show called 'Es Macho Time!' on YouTube.
