Joseph Serrano
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Joseph Serrano (born April 18, 1984 in
Caguas, Puerto Rico Caguas (, ) is a Caguas barrio-pueblo, city and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality in central eastern Puerto Rico. Located in the eponymous Caguas Valley between the Sierra de Cayey and Sierra de Luquillo of the Cordillera Central (Puer ...
) is a Puerto Rican who was an amateur
boxing Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...
star. Serrano had an award-winning career as an amateur. A member of the Bairoa Gym boxing team, he met, among others,
Miguel Cotto Miguel Ángel Cotto Vázquez (born October 29, 1980) is a Puerto Rican former professional boxer who competed from 2001 to 2017. He is a multiple-time world champion, and the first Puerto Rican boxer to win quadruple champion, world titles in fo ...
during his career as an amateur boxer. Cotto and Serrano forged a friendship as they belonged to the same team. Serrano joined the Puerto Rican
Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece bet ...
boxing team that participated in
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. He was widely expected to, at least, compete for a spot in the final rounds of his division, but he lost in the first round of the competition. As a matter of a fact,
Alex de Jesús Alex is a given name. Similar names are Alexander, Alexandra, Alexey or Alexis_(given_name), Alexis. People Multiple *Alex Brown (disambiguation), multiple people *Alex Cook (disambiguation), multiple people *Alex Forsyth (disambiguation), multi ...
was the only boxer from Puerto Rico to win an Olympic fight from 1996 to 2012. He qualified for the Olympic Games by ending up in second place at the
1st AIBA American 2004 Olympic Qualifying Tournament The 1st AIBA American 2004 Olympic Boxing Qualifying Tournament was held in Tijuana, Mexico from March 12 to March 20, 2004. It was the first chance for amateur boxers from North-, Central- and South America to qualify for the 2004 Summer Olympi ...
in
Tijuana, Mexico Tijuana is the most populous city of the Mexican state of Baja California, located on the northwestern Pacific Coast of Mexico. Tijuana is the municipal seat of the Tijuana Municipality, the hub of the Tijuana metropolitan area and the most popu ...
. Serrano then awaited a relatively long time to make a decision as far as to which promoter he would sign with as a professional fighter, but he finally decided to sign with
Bob Arum Robert Arum (born December 8, 1931) is an American lawyer and boxing promoter. He is the founder and CEO of Top Rank, a professional boxing promotion company based in Las Vegas. Prior to becoming a boxing promoter, Arum was employed as an attorn ...
and Arum's
Top Rank Top Rank, Inc. is a boxing promotional company founded by Jabir Herbert Muhammad and Bob Arum, which was incorporated in 1973, and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Since its founding, Top Rank has promoted many world class fighters, including M ...
company. By the time he signed his contract, he had become the last 2004 Olympic boxer from Puerto Rico to turn professional. Serrano made what was his first, and probably will be his only, professional bout on February 26, 2005, as part of the undercard where Cotto knocked out
DeMarcus Corley DeMarcus Deon Corley (born June 3, 1974) is an American professional boxer. A veteran of the sport for more than two decades, he held the WBO junior welterweight title from 2001 to 2003, and has fought as a gatekeeper against many of boxing's ...
. Serrano beat William Vega by a first round
knockout A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, ...
that day. On March 4, Serrano was shot to the head, leg and shoulder on the parking lot at Bairoa Gym, as he stood near the gym's door. He was injured critically, and, because the bullet to his head landed inside his
brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...
, he had to undergo emergency
surgery Surgery is a medical specialty that uses manual and instrumental techniques to diagnose or treat pathological conditions (e.g., trauma, disease, injury, malignancy), to alter bodily functions (e.g., malabsorption created by bariatric surgery s ...
. Serrano was in critical but stable condition at a local
hospital A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...
. A person has been identified as a suspect: the former boyfriend of a woman that Serrano is friends with. Soon after the shooting, other motives, such as a
drug deal The illegal drug trade, drug trafficking, or narcotrafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of drug prohibition, prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibitionism, prohibit trade, exce ...
gone wrong, for example, were ruled out by
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because Serrano is known to be a
Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
without any ties with problematic individuals. Whether Serrano will go on boxing as a professional or not remains to be seen, but, it is highly questionable that he will, because of the type of injury that the gunshot to the head produced: according to doctors, he had a brain hemorrhage, similar to those that have led some boxers to die after a fight. Because of this, it would be an educated guess to say that the injury will prevent him to fight on in a future. Serrano was in a
coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to Nociception, respond normally to Pain, painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal Circadian rhythm, sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate ...
. In what can be called an irony, Serrano had declared, one day before his fight with Vega, that the only thing he ever wanted to be since he was a little kid, was a professional boxer. Later on, a spokesman for Serrano's family announced that Serrano had shown slight improvement. According to the spokesman's report, Serrano's intracraneal pressure had been stabilized at 25 degrees of heat (10 degrees or less are considered normal, 40 degrees or more are considered very dangerous in the human brain). On the weekend that followed, his intracraneal pressure lowered to twelve, giving doctors reason to believe that he would be able to recuperate from the attack on him. The bullet on his brain was taken out after a complicated second operation to that area of his body, leading to the improvement in intracraneal pressure. While Serrano continued recuperating, on March 15, a still unnamed suspect was arrested and jailed without
bond Bond or bonds may refer to: Common meanings * Bond (finance), a type of debt security * Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States * Fidelity bond, a type of insurance policy for employers * Chemical bond, t ...
, because the case's
judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...
considered him too dangerous to be left outside
jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, usually as punishment for various cr ...
. Serrano eventually recuperated and left the hospital, returning to the Bairoa Gym as a ''special helper'' for Cotto during Cotto's training process for his title defense against Mohammed Abdullaev. The family moved to Pennsylvania to continue with medical treatment for Joseph. Jonathan Huertas Claudio was sentenced to 15 years probatory for paying $2,000 to Jorge Davila, who shot Joseph. Davila was sentenced to 6 months in jail and 11 years probatory. Huertas Claudio's probatory may have been revoked since he was caught DUI later on, and police pressed charges for beating his girlfriend in August 2007.


See also

*
List of Puerto Ricans This is a list of notable people from Puerto Rico which includes people who were born in Puerto Rico (Borinquen) and people who are of full or partial Puerto Rican people, Puerto Rican descent. Puerto Rican citizens are included, as the governm ...


References

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sports-reference
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serrano, Joseph 1984 births Living people Boxers at the 2003 Pan American Games Boxers at the 2004 Summer Olympics Converts to Christianity Sportspeople from Caguas, Puerto Rico Olympic boxers for Puerto Rico Puerto Rican Christians Puerto Rican male boxers Central American and Caribbean Games gold medalists for Puerto Rico Competitors at the 2002 Central American and Caribbean Games Flyweight boxers Central American and Caribbean Games medalists in boxing Pan American Games boxers for Puerto Rico 21st-century American sportsmen