About Pancho Villa (boxer)
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. == Early life and Philippine boxing career == Guilledo was born in Ilog, Negros Occidental, the son of a cowhand who abandoned his family when Guilledo was just six months old. He grew up in the hacienda of a wealthy local, helping his mother raise goats she tended on the farm. When Guilledo was 11, he sailed to Iloilo City to work as a bootblack. While in Iloilo, he befriended a local boxer and together they migrated to Manila, settling in Tondo. He would occasionally spar with friends and soon attracted the attention of local boxing habitués. He fought his first professional fight in 1919 against Alberto Castro.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.