Former Mexican boxer Miguel Canto, world flyweight champion between 1975 and 1979, is progressing favorably after a delicate brain surgery that was performed to reduce the pressure of fluid inside the skull and that caused blackouts, family members reported.
Irma Rodríguez, Canto’s wife, told Efe that the former champion required surgery “to try to recover his functions affected by the pressure of cerebrospinal fluid, possibly associated with his boxing exercise and as a fighter coach.”
Canto is remembered as having completed the most 15-round world championship fights in boxing history: 17 between 1973 and 1979.
Aged 70, he underwent surgery at the Ignacio García Téllez Medical Center of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) in Mérida, Yucatán, southeastern Mexico.
Rodríguez said that after the surgery her husband regained consciousness and can feed himself, so his prognosis is “encouraging.”
The former champion of Yucatán will turn 71 on January 28.
His three fights for the crown are remembered with the Venezuelan Betulio González, whom he beat twice, as well as with the Chilean Martín Vargas and the Japanese Shoj Oguma, whom he defeated three times, the first, to dethrone him on January 8, 1975 in Sendai, Japan. EFE