{"id":803343,"date":"2026-10-15T11:48:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/803343\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:48:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:48:22","slug":"boxing-puerto-rican-boxing-legend-wilfredo-bazooka-gomez-dies-aged-69-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/803343\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing: Puerto Rican boxing legend Wilfredo &#8216;Bazooka&#8217; Gomez dies aged 69"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Three-weight world champion Wilfredo &#8216;Bazooka&#8217; Gomez has died aged 69.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Puerto Rican won the WBC super-bantamweight title, WBC featherweight belt and WBA super-featherweight crown during a career in which he was renowned as a heavy puncher.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gomez fought in 48 fights and won 44, with 42 by virtue of knockout, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibhof.com\/pages\/about\/inductees\/modern\/gomez.html\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, external<\/a> in 1995. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former president of the sanctioning body the WBO Paco Valcarcel confirmed the passing of his compatriot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He passed away a few hours ago, the one to whom I owe having entered the great family of international boxing,&#8221; wrote Valcacel on social media on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Rest in peace, my eternal champion Wilfredo &#8216;Bazooka&#8217; Gomez.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gomez&#8217;s best wins came against fellow greats Mexico&#8217;s Carlos Zarate, two-weight champion Lupe Pintor, domestic rival Juan Laporte and American Rocky Lockridge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Zarate was his finest win, stopping the then 52-0 knockout specialist in five rounds in front of his home fans in San Juan to retain his WBC super-bantamweight title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three-weight world champion Wilfredo &#8216;Bazooka&#8217; Gomez has died aged 69. The Puerto Rican won the WBC super-bantamweight title,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-803343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}