How can I say this without degrading what many think is a "wonderful" person. I cant. Living in Spanish Harlem in the Johnson Houses Projects, I personally knew Hector (Macho) Camacho and his sister Estrella (that bitch!) though I knew his other sisters and family well.
 
What can I say about the guy? He was a punk and a bully. In the two fights I had with him, I beat him in one and he ran away in the other. He was nothing more than trouble for some of us at the JWJ Projects. He can be very intimidating, especially when one of his sisters is pushing him to resolve a fight by violent means, but when you stand up to him, he would coward away.
 
I think he may have been hit in the head once too many times because he was not always all that bright. He had a sense of good and bad and honor, but always went to bad. When he started to lose too many fight and started to look bad, he went to the Boy's Club where he asked to learn, in his words, "I want to fight like Bruce Lee!" He learned boxing then. Wikipedia states that he went on to learn Karate, but its wrong because I never saw him at the East Harlem Karate Academy School of Self Defense (Which I went on to my third degree blackbelt and is the reason why I beat him those early days). Though he went on to win championship fights in the PAL (Police Athletic League, an after school and summer program for teens and children ran by the NYC Police Dept.), I dont remember him graduating high school. Whether he did or didn't was his problem, not mine.
 
Though he was a terror in the boxing ring, he was an idiot in the open public. He would spend his winnings on fast cars, illegal drugs and women. Four of these women would be mothers to his four kids. I'll say that he did right by supporting them but did wrong for not being there, using his boxing career as an excuse to not be there for them. Again, Wikipedia has him arrested once for burglary but I know of many times when he was rounded up with the other drug addicts when buying their stash. I can bet he was let go if he did public service because of his fame.
 
He did not support his community with the millions he made in his boxing career. He only thought of himself, drugs, fast cars and women. As a teacher, lifeguard and education director for after school/summer day camp programs, I supported our community and gave children scholarships from various foundations and help poor family obtain food and services they needed. It is for me that community comes first and I later down the line. But he was the opposite of that, in the very least an opportunist and was nothing other than a name of fame in the community.
 
Since he died yesterday (at the time of this writing) you will be hearing about him and his fame in boxing. People will be saying nice things about him, people who never knew him. Last night a barbershop owner was interviewed last night about his days as a child and a teen in the projects and showing off pictures of him. Least to say that living in this community for the past 30 years, that barber did not have a shop there when Hector lived there, that barber himself just recently moved to the area a few years ago, and that barber never knew Hector Camacho on any level to say the good things he said about him. There is too much hype for an idiot who got by his fists and who did not do any good except for himself with those fists. One who spent much of his life drunk or high, and despite what they say about the shooting, he was about to do drugs with his friend before they got shot.
 
What can I say about this guy? Dont believe the hype. That is what I can say about him. Only in death will I give him the respect he never deserved in life. May he find the peace he never had.
 
Links:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Héctor_Camacho
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/sports/hector-camacho-50-boxer-who-lived-dange rously-dies.html
 
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/24/sport/puerto-rico-camacho-death/index.html