Former boxing champion killed
Antonio Cermeno was kidnapped and killed in his native Venezuela, police said.
FORMER WORLD champion boxer Antonio Cermeno was kidnapped and killed in his native Venezuela, police said.
Cermeno, a WBA super bantamweight and featherweight champion in the 1990s, was found shot to death yesterday on a road in the central state of Miranda, local police chief Eliseo Guzman said.
Guzman said Cermeno and other relatives were kidnapped Monday night near the La Urbina neighborhood in east Caracas. The relatives escaped when the kidnappers stopped to refuel the car, but the former boxer remained captive, Guzman said.
Cermeno, 44, retired in 2006 with a 45-7 record.
His slaying comes on the heels of the killing of popular soap-opera actress and former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear in early January. Robbers killed the 29-year-old and her former husband, Thomas Henry Berry, 39, on an isolated stretch of highway while the couple was returning to the capital by car with their 5-year-old daughter.
The high-profile slayings highlight spiraling violent crime in Venezuela, which is one of the spurs to opposition protests that have rocked the South American country in recent weeks. The United Nations ranks Venezuela's homicide rate as the fifth highest in the world.
The non-government Venezuelan Observatory of Violence estimates the country's murder rate has quadrupled in 15 years of socialist rule.
In other boxing news:
* Floyd Mayweather is scheduled to face WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana on May 3 in a bout to unify their 147-pound titles. WBC welterweight champion Mayweather (45-0, 26 KOs) is coming off a year in which he had victories over Robert Guerrero and Canelo Alvarez. Maidana (35-3, 31 KOs), of Margarita, Argentina, defeated Adrien Broner on Dec. 14 by unanimous decision. The fight is expected to be held in Las Vegas.
College Football
* Former Texas A&M and NFL quarterback Bucky Richardson was arrested in College Station on a driving while intoxicated charge. Richardson was with the Aggies from 1987 through 1991. He was drafted by the Houston Oilers in 1992 and played three seasons.
* Utah redshirt freshman Moana Ofahengaue, a defensive lineman, is in critical condition after an accident on a motorized bike. Details about the accident were not released.
Philly File
* Temple wide receiver Ryan Alderman, a onetime walk-on who played 48 games and served as captain as a senior, was named American Athletic Conference Football Scholar-Athlete of the Year. A senior from Downington, Alderman will receive a $2,000 scholarship, which may be applied to graduate or professional studies. Alderman has a 3.21 grade-point average in the graduate program in innovation management and entrepreneurship. He earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and finance with an undergraduate GPA of 3.59.
Sport Stops
* Greg McLaughlin is leaving as head of the Tiger Woods Foundation after 14 years to join the PGA Tour in an executive leadership position.
* The United States' exhibition soccer game against Ukraine on March 5 has been moved from Kharkiv to Cyprus following weeks of violence in the Eastern European nation.
* Former Olympic swimming champion Grant Hackett, of Australia, has flown to the United States to undergo treatment for an addiction to the sleeping medication Stilnox.