12 Facts About Joseph Serrano

Cotto and Serrano forged a friendship as they belonged to the same team.

Joseph Serrano joined the Puerto Rican Olympic boxing team that participated in Athens.

Joseph Serrano 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.

Joseph 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 and Arum's Top Rank company.

Joseph 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.

Joseph Serrano beat William Vega by a first round knockout that day.

Joseph Serrano was injured critically, and, because the bullet to his head landed inside his brain, he had to undergo emergency surgery.

Joseph Serrano was in critical but stable condition at a local hospital.

Whether Joseph 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.

In what can be called an irony, Joseph 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 Joseph Serrano's family announced that Joseph Serrano had shown slight improvement.

Joseph 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.