Background and career
Francisco Villaruel Guilledo (August 1, 1901 – July 14, 1925), commonly known as Pancho Villa, was a Filipino professional boxer. Villa, who stood only 5 feet and 1 inch (154 cm) tall and never weighed more than 114 pounds (51 kg), despite the racial discrimination of that time, rose from obscurity to become the first Asian to win the World Flyweight Championship in 1923, earning the reputation in some quarters as one of the greatest Flyweight boxers in history. Villa is widely regarded as one of the greatest Filipino boxers of all time alongside Manny Pacquiao and Gabriel Elorde. He was never knocked out in his entire boxing career, which ended with his sudden death at only twenty-three from complications following a tooth extraction.
