"El Radar" Wilfred Benítez in really bad shape

https://www.elnuevodia.com/deportes/boxeo/nota/wilfredbenitezparteachicagopararecibiratencionmedica-2425769/ (Google translated) Carolina - Former Puerto Rican world champion Wilfred Benitez was discharged this Friday at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport by a couple of former Puerto Rican ex-monarchs and members of the press, before boarding a plane with his sister Yvonne and her husband, heading for the city ​​of Chicago. Benitez, whose health has deteriorated over the years after the diagnosis of post-traumatic encephalopathy performed by doctors shortly after his retirement in 1990, had been bedridden between the hospital and the house under the care of his sister Yvonne. This, with the help of Luis Mateo, a Puerto Rican resident in Chicago who was Benitez's glove partner more than three decades ago, chose to take the triple world champion to the City of Winds, where he is expected to receive medical attention required by the multiple health conditions that have come over the years, as well as physical and speech therapies. Benítez reigned in three divisions since he made history in boxing as the youngest fighter to be crowned world champion (at 17 years, five months and 24 days) on March 6, 1973 at the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, dethroning until then the superligero monarch of the WBA, the Colombian Antonio Cervantes, "Kid Pambelé". "He is going to have service in a hospital that is across the street from where we are going to live. Eventually when we get there, tomorrow we will do a stagecoach and on Monday you will be seeing the assigned doctor, Dr. Solis, "said Yvonne, who took care of her brother full time as soon as his mother died in 2008, Mrs. Clara Rosa Medina. Wilfred arrived at the airport in an ambulance since he had been bedridden for a few years and would travel by stretcher to Chicago. "We're going to be taking him and bringing him from the hospital. He will be at home as long as he does not decay, "Yvonne added. The sister of the former world natural champion of Saint Just in Carolina, said that the move to the United States was something he was looking for a few years ago and began efforts to move with Wilfred to Philadelphia, Delaware and Miami. On all three occasions he received promises that were never fulfilled until Mateo, along with other relatives, such as David Díaz and the two-time heavyweight contender, Fres Oquendo, visited the family at the end of 2017. Mateo, on behalf of the American Boxing Organization (ABO), a boxing organization that also runs charity works, came on several occasions last year with help collected in Chicago for the victims of the island by Hurricane Maria. On one of his trips, he asked about Benitez's condition and asked to see him. It was his reunion with Wilfred since the 80s. "I was his flat 35 years ago. When he fought with Durán (Roberto) I was the one who helped him, "recalled Mateo, who also said that Benítez, by way of thanks for the help in the training, took him to a store and bought him About $ 900 in clothes. "I never forgot that. We came with the ABO, which is a Mexican organization, in Chicago. They gathered everything to help. Nine trailers met in Chicago to bring aid to Puerto Rico. And the last time we came, I said, 'I have to go see Benitez'. Iván Calderón told me it was wrong, and I said I had to go see him. When I saw him I started crying and I said, 'I'm going to take him away,' "he added. Among the fighters present at the farewell at the airport were, in addition to Oquendo, former world champions Juan Laporte and Juanma López. "It's a very sad situation, because blessed, we know what he was like, and seeing him in this condition is sad. But that it is for the best good of him and that wherever they take him, they attend to him in the way that is due, "said Laporte, who was a contemporary with Benítez in his time as active boxers. Lopez, meanwhile, who was born in 1983 at the time of Benítez's heyday, said he knows Wilfred's sister and recognizes the courage of the former champion for the history of boxing. In that sense he felt the need to give his emotional support and attended the farewell today. "If boxing were a building, Wilfred Benítez is one of its most important pillars, not only in Puerto Rico, but in the world," Lopez acknowledged, extolling super-bantamweight and pen.