Wilfredo Gómez

Wilfredo Gomez Rivera was born on 29 October 1956 in Las Monjas, a poor area of Hato Rey in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the son of Jacobo Gomez and Paula Rivera. He got around by bicycle and sold sweets to earn pocket money before he took up boxing.

He represented Puerto Rico at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, losing in the first round. In 1974 he won gold at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Santo Domingo and at the first World Amateur Boxing Championships in Havana. He finished his amateur career with 96 wins and 3 losses.

Because of his family's finances, Gomez turned professional after the 1974 World Championships instead of waiting for the 1976 Olympics. He moved to Panama, where his debut in Panama City ended in a draw with Jacinto Fuentes. He then won 32 fights in a row by knockout.

In 1977 he knocked out Dong Kyun Yum at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan to win the WBC super bantamweight title, recovering from a first-round knockdown. He made 17 defences, all won by knockout, a record for any weight class. They included a five-round knockout of the unbeaten bantamweight champion Carlos Zarate in 1978, generally seen as his greatest win, and victories over Leo Cruz, Juan Meza and Lupe Pintor.

Moving up to featherweight, he lost to Salvador Sanchez in 1981, his first defeat. Sanchez was killed in a car crash in August 1982, so there was no rematch. Gomez won the WBC featherweight title from Juan Laporte in March 1984 and lost it to Azumah Nelson in December 1984. In May 1985 he took the WBA super featherweight title from Rocky Lockridge, then lost it to Alfredo Layne in May 1986. After two comeback wins in 1988 and 1989 he retired with a record of 44 wins, 3 losses and 1 draw, with 42 knockouts. He also worked briefly as a boxing broadcaster for Puerto Rican television.

After retiring, Gomez moved to Venezuela, where drug problems led to legal trouble and some months in jail. He went through rehabilitation in Colombia and returned to Puerto Rico, where he helped Hector Camacho train his son Hector Camacho Jr. In 1998 he became a born-again Christian. He bought a house in Orlando, Florida, in 2006, and later lived in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico. His son Wilfredo Gomez Jr. spoke publicly for the family during his final illness.

Gomez died at about 9:00 pm on Saturday, 10 October 2026, aged 69. His son, Wilfredo Gomez Jr., confirmed the death on Telemundo and said he would give more details the following day. Earlier that week he had asked for prayers for his father on social media. In his last years Gomez had faced health problems, including brain damage associated with his long boxing career. A specific cause of death had not been made public at the time of the first reports.

Gomez is frequently named alongside Felix Trinidad, Miguel Cotto, Wilfred Benitez and Carlos Ortiz as one of Puerto Rico's greatest boxers, and an El Nuevo Dia expert panel chose him as the island's best ever. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1995, was ranked 13th on The Ring's list of the 100 greatest punchers, and was named the greatest super bantamweight in history by the Houston Boxing Hall of Fame in 2014. The 2003 documentary Bazooka: The Battles of Wilfredo Gomez told his story.