Fernando Pacheco Jimenez known publicly as Ferdie Pacheco, was the personal physician and cornerman for world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali as well as numerous other boxing champions.
21 Facts About Ferdie Pacheco
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Ferdie Pacheco became an author and self-taught painter, with most of his works focused on his career in boxing and his youth in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, Florida.
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Ferdie Pacheco was raised bilingual, which he would later say was one of the most critical decisions his parents ever made to ensure his success.
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Ferdie Pacheco worked in his father's drugstore, which sparked his interest in medicine.
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Ybor City at the time was a community known as a boxing hotbed, with amateur matches regularly held at the Circulo Cubano de Tampa and other clubs and venues around the neighborhood, and Ferdie Pacheco attended many bouts.
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Ferdie Pacheco developed an early interest in art, which was inspired by a trip to the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota with his maternal grandfather, Gustavo Jimenez.
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Ferdie Pacheco graduated from Tampa Jefferson High School, earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida and completed his medical degree in 1958 from the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami.
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One night after a fight card, Ferdie Pacheco was introduced to Angelo Dundee, the promoter's brother, a boxing trainer who ran the 5th Street Gym.
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Ferdie Pacheco met Muhammad Ali in 1960, when he came to the 5th Street Gym in Miami, to train with Angelo Dundee.
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Ferdie Pacheco became Ali's cornerman and fight physician from 1962 to 1977.
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Ferdie Pacheco described Ali as anatomically the most physically perfect human being he had ever seen.
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Ferdie Pacheco moved on to become a television boxing analyst, working for NBC and Univision.
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Julio Cesar Chavez in particular believed that Ferdie Pacheco was one of only a few in the American media that interviewed Latino fighters and their handlers fairly due to his ability to ask fighters such as Chavez questions in Spanish without losing the meaning of anything said in translation.
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Ferdie Pacheco frequently provided color commentary in Spanish for the broadcast of major bouts, as well as other sports-related packages televised on Univision.
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Ferdie Pacheco would become Showtime's featured boxing analyst in the early 1980s and continued his association with the network until his retirement from TV in the late 1990s, covering many notable fights along the way.
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Ferdie Pacheco was the author of several books, plays, screenplays, and short stories.
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Ferdie Pacheco's works included a memoir, an autobiography and a cookbook.
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Ferdie Pacheco was an award-winning self-taught artist, primarily inspired by Norman Rockwell with influences of Diego Rivera's use of bold colors.
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Ferdie Pacheco was portrayed by Paul Rodriguez in the cinema film Ali.
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Ferdie Pacheco resided in Miami with his wife, Luisita, with whom he had daughter Tina Louise.
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Ferdie Pacheco died in his sleep on November 16,2017 at his home in Miami, at the age of 89.