Un-Macho: Hector Camacho

Born in Puerto Rico on May 24, 1962, Hector Camacho's family moved to New York when he was still a small boy. Growing up on the tough city streets, he was usually in trouble and in jail for the first time by the time he was 15. However, he also discovered boxing and showed talent at it. Operating out of the LaSpombra Sporting Club, he won the New York City Golden Gloves from 1978 to 1980, and turned pro as a super featherweight (130 lbs) in September 1980.

A showy loudmouth, Camacho was calling out champions like Eusebio Pedroza and Salvador Sánchez before his first year as a pro was over, and while he was still beating up on tomato cans. Camacho had not graduated to the ranks of tough journeymen until 1982. However, a lot of those journeymen from 1982 and early 1983 were undefeateds like Camacho, and dominated them all. It earned him a shot at the WBC 130 lbs belt. However, the champ, Bobby Chacon, refused to go to Puerto Rico to fight Camacho on his home turf. So, the WBC stripped Chacon and held a bout for the vacant title between Camacho and Chacon's longtime rival, Rafael Limon. Camacho was 21-0 and Limon 50-12-2. Combining speed and power, Camacho dropped Limon in the 1st and 3rd Rounds, and stopped him in the 5th. Camaco had won his first world title by knockout.

Camacho was 5'6.5" tall with a 69" reach. His main asset was his blinding handspeed, which he combined with solid boxing skills to befuddle most opponents. Camacho was also blessed with a good chin, so if he was hit by a big bomb, only the hardest punchers would be likely to hurt him. His hitting power in turn was merely average, and he usually did damage more on the basis of scoring with shockingly fast punches the opponent could not see rather than sheer explosive power.

Undefeated
November 1983 saw Puerto Rico's newest boxing star make the first defense of his title, and not far past his 21st birthday to boot. Rafael Solis had not lost a fight in five years. Camacho caught and survived a monster right uppercut in the 3rd, and bounced back to knock Solis out in the 5th. That was his only formal defense of the title. He fought a couple of journeymen in non-title bouts, and then moved up to lightweight.

In his first real test since winning the WBC strap from Limon, Camacho fought 90-5 Mexican and veteran contender Jose Luis Ramirez for the WBC Lightweight Title. Ramirez's reputation was as a solid lightweight who lost only to the best, names like Arguello and Mancini. He was 1-1 with Edwin Rosario. He lost to Camacho too. Using speed and skill, Camacho easily outboxed and outpointed the tough-but-limited Mexican fighter, dropped him in the 3rd, and finally took away his title in August 1985.

Camacho then outpointed future world class trainer Freddie Roach, which set the stage for a showdown with Ramirez's old rival Edwin Rosario in June 1986. Rosario was the former WBC champ with only the loss to Ramirez to his record. It was a see-saw battle with the great fellow Puerto Rican. Camacho controlled the first stanza with his skill and speed, but then Rosario's power found its mark and turned the tide. Shaken to the ankles, Camacho went into survival mode through the middle of the fight, but after finding his legs came back after Round 6. Rosario stormed back for the last three closely contested rounds. It was a close fight which Camacho carried by Split Decision. The main outcome of the bout was that Camacho, his chin seriously dented for the first time, began to adopt a safety-first style from that point forward. He went from being "Macho Camacho" to one of the most boring and awkward name fighters in the game.

It was also two years before Hector Camacho jousted with another worth opponent (he avoided giving Rosario a well-deserved rematch). Moving up to super lightweight (140 lbs), he fought 29-3 Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini in March 1989 for the vacant, lightly-regarded belt of the WBO. Mancini was a guts and glory fighter who had already taken a lot of punishment and was seeing a premature downslide in his career. However, because Camacho approached him cautiously, their meeting was a close bout that saw Camacho win more on the basis of slick moves than macho intentions. Camacho kept his "0" in a Split Decision.

In February 1990 Camacho defending his fringe title against Vinny Pazienza. "Paz" was gutsy and fast, but was 28-3 and had lost his two previous title challenges. In a battle of speedsters, Camacho was in his element and won a solid Unanimous Decision.

Defeat
A year later saw Camacho in the ring with 28-3 Greg Haugen. It should have been an easy fight for Camacho, as Haugen had fought Pazienza three times and was 1 for 2 with him. He also had a loss to the great defensive wizard Pernell Whittaker. However, unlike Pazienza, Haugen was a two-time champion. Despite knocking him down in the 3rd, Camacho found he had his hands full with Haugen. Disgusted, Camacho refused to touch gloves with Haugen in the 12th, and in a controversial move he was penalized a point for the unsportsmanlike slight. Camacho's attitude would cost him dearly. On scores of 114-112, 114-112, and 112-114, Haugen won a hair thin Split Decision. If Camacho had simply touched gloves at the start of the 12th, the fight would have been 113-113 across the board for a Draw.

The bout was made even more controversial when an "unidentified substance" was found in Haugen's urine after the bout. Unlike Rosario, Camacho got an immediate rematch. They met again in May 1991, and this time Camacho managed to turn the pendulum back the other way, but only just barely. He won a narrow Split Decision by much the same margin Haugen had beaten him three months before.

Everyone Hates Camacho
Camacho's trash talking and show boating had, by the early 1990s, made him one of the least popular figures in boxing. It would not have been so bad, except that he had denied his countryman Rosario a rematch and since then had done so little to back up his swagger. By September 1992, the money was finally right and he got in the ring with a man he had been calling out for years: 81-0 Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez. Camacho displayed none of his macho that night: he got on his bike and ran from Chavez all night, ceding practically every round and barely doing enough to keep from being disqualified for not fighting.

By now the secret was out: Camacho had a name, but was no longer a legitimate threat to a real world class contender. His safety-first strategy would make for a boring, but safe and bankable fight. After all, there were plenty of people who would pay a little money in hopes of seeing Camacho get his ass whipped. The next man to get on that train ride was fellow Puerto Rican and 22-0 banger Felix Trinidad, the IBF Welterweight Champion. Camacho's speed and skill were enough to blunt Trinidad's power, but only at the expense of having no offense whatsoever, and he dropped a huge points loss in January 1994.

Camacho kept busy by fighting no-hopers through 1994 and 1995. The paychecks might not have been big, but they were steady. Then in June 1996, Camacho showed he had no shame when he joined the senior citizen circuit by fighting a 45 year old Roberto Duran. Camacho was 11 years younger. Had they both been in their prime, "The Hands of Stone" would have obliterated Camacho at lightweight. As it was, he was too slow to pose much of a threat to a man who still had plenty of skill and speed left, and Camacho won a huge points win. Continuing to feast on the remnants of a bygone generation, he stopped a comebacking, rusty Ray Leonard in 1997. It should have been almost as humiliating for Camacho as for Leonard, but the Puerto Rican braggart celebrated and treated it as a world class win.

The one thing the Leonard win did do was earn Camacho a major payday and place on Oscar de la Hoya's dance card. "The Golden Boy" was in the midst of a string of showy and lucrative, but meaningless and utterly unrisky defenses of his WBC Welterweight Title at the time, and Camacho fit the bill perfectly. Faced with a real threat, Camacho again wilted and, just as with Trinidad, dropped every round as he ran from de la Hoya.

Obscurity
After losing to Oscar de la Hoya, Camacho went back to a steady diet of tomato cans and sub-par journeymen. In 2001 he fought a powerless Roberto Duran again, and swamped him for a second time. In a measure of justice, one of his victims managed to beat him in 2003 in a 6th Round Technical Decision. He was still fighting as late as May 2009, when he fought former 154 lbs champion "Yori Boy" Campas and managed a Draw with him. In scoring a draw with the shopworn Mexican puncher, Camacho was certainly showing more life against any serious challenge than he had in years.

Camacho in his 30s was also once again bedeviled by run-ins with the law. In 2004 he was arrested while burgling a computer store, and had ecstacy on his person. In 2006, he allegedly attacked his live-in girlfriend. His son, Hector Camacho, Jr. is also a professional boxer.

Sources: live fight footage, boxrec.com, ESPN Classic Sports, The Ring