Former world boxing champion Hector "Macho" Camacho was in Puerto Rico Tuesday. He was shot in the face as he sat in a car outside the Puerto Rican capital.

He has severe injuries yet according to physicians is expected to survive.

The 50 year old athlete was also with another man in the car. Unfortunately the passenger died in the attack when atleast one gunman opened fire on their vehicle in the city of Bayamon, according to a statement from police.

He was in critical yet stable condition. Camacho was immediately brought to Centro medica, the trauma center in San Juan. Dr. Erensto Torres, the hospital director informed reporters that he should recover smoothly yet may not be the same afterwards.

He informed that the bullet apparently hit him in the jaw and exited his head and lodged in his right shoulder and fractured two vertebrae, Torres said. The doctor disclosed that the boxer, who was trailed by drug and alcohol problems during a career that included some high-profile bouts, could be paralyzed from the shooting.

"Camacho's condition is extremely delicate," he told Telenoticias. "His physical condition will help him but we will see."

Police have informed the public that no arrests have been made as yet.

Camacho representative Steve Tannenbaum attested that he was informed by friends at the hospital that the boxer would make it.

"This guy is a cat with nine lives. He's been through so much," he said. "If anybody can pull through it will be him."

"We were talking comeback even though he is 50," he said. "I felt he was capable of it."

Bayamon is the boxer’s place of birth, one of the cities that make up the San Juan metropolitan area. He won super lightweight, lightweight and junior welterweight world titles in the 1980s.

Camacho has fought other high-profile bouts in his career against Felix Trinidad, Julio Cesar Chavez and Sugar Ray Leonard. Camacho beat Leonard in 1997, ending what was that former champ's final comeback attempt.

Camacho has a career record of 79-6-3 (38 KOs), with his most recent fight coming in 2010.

His career and life outside of work has not always been so smooth-sailing as substance abuse and alcohol and other problems have followed Camacho since the prime of his boxing career. He was sentenced in 2007 to seven years in prison for the burglary of a computer store in Mississippi. While arresting him on the burglary charge in January 2005, police also found the drug ecstasy.

A judge eventually suspended all but one year of the sentence and gave Camacho probation. He wound up serving two weeks in jail, though, after violating that probation.

His wife filed domestic abuse complaints against him two times in the past, and she filed for divorce several years ago.