… his pal (above) was killed in cold blood. (GFR Media / Splash News)
(
)
It seems like boxer Hector Camacho has been fighting all his life — and not just in the ring.
He fought as a troubled teen in Spanish Harlem, getting into neighborhood scrapes that landed him in jail before he was 16.
He fought with fame and the crash that comes when the bright spotlight fades.
He fought with drugs and alcohol and all the demons of addiction.
And, now he’s fighting to survive — and he’s behind on every scorecard.
Doctors said the self-proclaimed Macho Man, who was actually tough enough to wear a loin cloth into the ring, was brain dead and clinging to life after a gunman shot him in the face Tuesday night as he sat in a parked car in Puerto Rico.
Camacho was rushed to a San Juan hospital where his chances of survival were described as slim.
Doctors said a bullet aimed at Camacho’s face was deflected by his jaw, and made its way to the top of his spinal cord. Even if he does survive, Camacho, who loved to dance in and out of the ring, could be paralyzed for the rest of his life.
That was the prognosis before Camacho suffered an overnight heart attack that left him with little cerebral activity.
“The situation with Macho is very delicate,” one of his doctors, Ernesto Torres, told reporters yesterday. “The prognosis is not good.”
Camacho was outside a liquor store in the passenger seat of a parked Ford Mustang with a friend when he was shot in the face.
The friend, identified as 49-year-old Adrian Mojica Moreno, was killed. Police said two assailants fled in an SUV but no arrests have been made and no motive has been disclosed.
Detectives said Moreno, who owned the car, had nine bags of cocaine in his possession with an open 10th bag in the vehicle.
Camacho’s family, including his son, Hector Jr., a boxer, will decide whether to take him off life support.
Despite Camacho’s prognosis, his friend and lawyer, Steve Tannenbaum, held out hope that Camacho would answer the bell.
“This guy is a cat with nine lives,” Tannenbaum told reporters “He’s been through so much. If anybody can pull through, it will be him.”
For every brutal title bout — Camacho won super lightweight, lightweight and junior welterweight world titles during the 1980s and 1990s — there was a battle with the law.
He went to jail as a teenager for getting into street fights. After Camacho retired he was arrested for burglary in Mississippi. And earlier this year he was detained in Florida on child-abuse charges.
Along the way, there have been clashes with managers, conflicts with promoters, quarrels with women and confrontations with police.
But none of his opponents — not Roberto Duran, not Sugar Ray Leonard, not Julio Cesar Chavez — was like the one he’s facing now.
Promoter Don King recalled Camacho’s relentless left-handed ring attack — and the wild outfits printed with the colors of the Puerto Rican flag.
“The Macho Man was a promoter’s dream,” King said. “He excited boxing fans around the world with his inimitable style.”
Camacho was born in the Puerto Rico town of Bayamon, the same town where he was shot.
As a boy, his family moved to Spanish Harlem, where he ignored his single mother’s 9 p.m. curfew, and excelled at strife, stealing and sneaking out.
“He was one of the tough little guys in the neighborhood,” his ex-wife, Amy, said of him once before their bitter divorce.
She grew up with him in the neighborhood, before gloves and a square ring changed his life.
“I never really liked him,” Amy once said. “I mean, he was wild. He was everything you wouldn’t want to bring home to mom.”
Even though Camacho lost his last bout more than two years ago — he retired with a career record of 79-6-3 — the 50-year-old fighter was thinking about stepping in the ring again.
For now, there is just the big fight, the biggest of his life.
With