Boxing Champ Visits Chabad House in Hometown

Puerto Rican boxing champion Miguel Cotto paid a visit to Chabad of Puerto Rico in San Juan recently, according to a post on the center’s Facebook page. Cotto is known to some in the Jewish community as the fighter that stole the crown from Hasidic boxing Champion Yuri Foreman in an epic Yankee Stadium bout on June 5th, 2010.

“Famous Puerto Rican Boxer Miguel Cotto visits Chabad,” reads a caption accompanying a picture of the pugilist posing under the Jewish center’s sign.

“He heard so much about our work so he was intrigued to come by and visit,” Chabad of Puerto Rico’s Rabbi Mendel Zarchi confirmed to The Algemeiner.

As The Agemeiner reported earlier this year, Cotto sports an Orthodox Union kosher symbol tattoo on his right shoulder which Zarchi says he got as an ”expression of his friendship for his good friend Eric Samson.” Samson is Director of E-Commerce at Marc Ecko Enterprises, one of Cotto’s major sponsors.

He also praised Samson as a proud ambassador for Judaism. “Eric is proud of his commitment to Judaism, and it has in turn had a positive influence on his friends, including Miguel,” he concluded.