Bad Bunny Pays Tribute to Puerto Rican Boxer Prichard Colón
Art by Stephany Torres for Remezcla
Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny has paid tribute to former boxer Prichard Colón, who passed away at the age of 33. Colón suffered a brain bleed following a 2015 fight after receiving repeated blows to the neck, and never fully recovered. In 2016, the WBC introduced the “Prichard Colón rule” to discourage and punish blows to the back of the neck, called “rabbit punches.”
In a letter in El Nuevo Día titled “Carta a Prichard” and signed “Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio,” the artist says, “I was one of those people who watched fights every Saturday, no matter who was fighting. I also believe that having a boxing culture, like the one we have in Puerto Rico, adds an extra passion to the love I feel for the sport and the affection I have for our stars,” he said.
Bad Bunny also emphasized that in 2014, when he was recording his first songs, he started following Colón, whom he described as “a young prospect from Puerto Rico in whom I had great faith.”
“I spoke to everyone about this boxer with the same passion I used to talk about my music. Some already knew about him, and for the rest it was just a matter of time before they found out,” Bad Bunny added. “Honestly, I had a feeling he would be ‘the next one.’ He had style, good boxing, IQ, punching power, image, presence, and charisma; he had everything to be the great Puerto Rican star we so desperately needed in boxing.”
Colón spent 221 days in a coma after that 2015 fight. Before that, he’d amassed a 16-1 record, with 13 KO wins.
“And although fate robbed him of the opportunity to be everything I knew he would be, we bid him farewell and will remember him as a champion of our land. Another Puerto Rican who represented us and made us proud. I never stopped supporting him; I never lost faith in him,” Bad Bunny also said in the emotional letter.