Sports

Legendary Boxer Jose Torres Dies at Age 72

by TFleming | January 19, 2009 at 12:06 pm

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Jose "Chegui" Torres, former Olympic silver medalist and light heavyweight world champion died Monday at the age of 72. He was found by his wife Monday morning in his home town of Ponce, Puerto Rico. Cause of death was determined to be a heart attack. The mayor of Ponce has declared three days of mourning and ordered the flags to be lowered to half-mast.

“Puerto Rico has lost a great Puerto Rican, a very valiant person who aside from being a great athlete, was a great human being,” David Bernier, president of the U.S. territory’s Olympic committee, told radio station WKAQ.

Torres won his light heavyweight title in 1965 at Madison Square Gardens in New York. After defending it successfully three times he lost to Dick Tiger in 1966 and finished his career with a record of 41-3-1 with 29 knockouts.

Torres was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1997.

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B. Zelley

at 15:52 on January 21st, 2009

JOSE TORRES was a great boxer with a style like Floyd Paterson.

After defeating WILLIE PASTRANO for the light-heavyweight title, he had a number of title defences overWayne Thornton, Eddie Cotton, and Chic Calderwood before losing to former middleweight champion DICK TIGER

The 1960's was an exciting time in professional boxing,Torres was one of the stars along with Muhammed Ali, Dick Tiger, Emile Griffith, Joe Brown, Carlos Ortiz, Vincente Saldivar and Eder Jofre.