The Mexican Juan Manuel Márquez and the Puerto Rican Miguel Ángel Cotto, both world champions in four different divisions, were inducted this Sunday into the Boxing Hall of Fame, in Canastota, New York.
This year’s induction ceremony featured for the first time with three generations, that of 2020, in which Márquez was; 2021, where Floyd Mayweather Jr. stands out; and that of 2022, who sent Cotto to immortality.
The three groups of the last years will enter the most important Boxing Hall of Fame at the same time, in view of the ceremonies of 2020 and 2021 were suspended due to the COVID pandemic.
In addition, for the first time in the history of the venue that was inaugurated in 1990 entered the first boxers, Christy Martin, Lucia Rijker, Barbara Buttrick, in 2020; Laila Ali, daughter of legend Muhammad Ali, Jackie Tonawanda, Marian Trimiar and Ann Wolfe, in 2021; and Regina Halmich and Holly Holm, in 2022.
“I am excited to be here for two things . The first because only the greatest in boxing are here, and the second because being here is the last step to be successful in this career“, Márquez said at the time of his induction.
Together with the Mexican, champion in featherweight, super featherweight, lightweight and super lightweight, they were in 2020 Bernard Hopkins, Shane ‘Sugar’ Mosley, Martin, Rijker, Buttrick, Frank Erne, Paddy Ryan; promoters Lou DiBella, Kathy Duva and Dan Goossen, and journalists Bernard Fernández and Thomas Hauser.
The members of 2021 were Wladimir Klitschko, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Andre Ward, Ali, Wolfe, Trimiar, Tonawanda and Davey Moore; cutman Freddie Brown, Dr. Margaret Goodman, coach and manager Jackie McCoy, journalist George Kimball and television director Jay Larkin.
Cotto, the first Puerto Rican to win titles in four different divisions, led the winners in 2022 in which Roy Jones Jr is also ., James Toney, Tod Morgan, Halmich, Holm, publicist Bill Caplan, announcer Chuck Hull, journalist Ron Borges and producer Bob Yalen.
“My family has been the inspiration of my life, those who made me work in the best way for my dreams, for yours. Thank you all”, commented Cotto.
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