Twenty-year-old Ronney Vargas, a three-time Golden Gloves champion was shot and killed after a dispute yesterday in the Bronx. Following a confrontation at a bodega in East Tremont, a group of male suspects followed Vargas and blocked his car in, then pistol-whipped and shot him in the torso. Vargas then desperately tried to drive off, sideswiping a number of cars before finally getting out and collapsing. Vargas had just turned pro last year and was already 8-0. His family says that his high profile within their South Bronx neighborhood may have made him more of a target. A police source told the NY Daily News, "It was a dispute over some females. He talked to the wrong girls, and the boyfriend didn't like it." And apparently the killing was caught on surveillance tape more ›

Unfortunately, Gothamist isn't old enough to have watched Floyd Patterson fight. Our childhood memories of him consist of hearing Billy Joel sing "Liston beats Patterson" about their 1962 fight. Born in North Carolina, Patterson and his family moved to Bed-Stuy when he was a child. After a brief period in Upstate New York, where he first took up boxing, Patterson returned to the city and, before long, started to train with Cus D'Amato at the Gramercy Gym in the Lower East Side. more ›