• Submitted by: lena campos
• Sports
• 07 / 16 / 2012

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Cuban legislators have voted to turn the childhood home of national boxing

legend Teofilo Stevenson into a museum, Granma newspaper said Thursday.

The three-time Olympic and world boxing champion died recently, leading the

Assembly of People's Power in eastern Las Tunas province, where Stevenson was

born, to propose converting the house into a shrine to the national legend.

Las Tunas provincial president Lilian Gonzalez said her administration and

municipal authorities of the town of Puerto Padre, where Stevenson was born

March 29, 1952, were eager to back the creation of the museum in honor of the

man considered to be the best amateur boxer in history.

Stevenson, 60, died suddenly of a heart attack in Havana on June 11.

During his 20-year career, the acclaimed boxer collected all of the titles

the International Association of Amateur Boxing (AIBA) gives out, and won 301

of his 321 fights.

Stevenson won Olympic gold medals at Munich 1972, Montreal 1976 and Moscow

1980, and world tournaments held in Havana 1974, Belgrade 1978 and Reno 1986.

In the 1980s, U.S.boxing promoters tried to organize a fight between the two

boxing greats of the time, Stevenson and Muhammad Ali, but the fight never

materialized because Cuba insisted on amateur boxing rules. Ali reportedly

said that the fight would have ended in a draw.

Promoters nevertheless pursued Stevenson for years, offering him millions of

dollars to leave Cuba and turn pro in the United States. He never did,

preferring to live in Cuba.

Stevenson retired from the ring in 1988, but continued to serve the world of

boxing as Vice President of the Cuban Federation of Amateur Boxing.

His funeral in Havana was attended by more than two thousand admirers,

authorities and other sport legends.

Source: XINHUA