Referee Joe Cortez, Boxing’s Lucky Survivor of COVID-19
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
From Eddie Cotton to cut man Nelson Cuevas, form trainer Ali Harrison to middleweight contender Juan Domingo Roldan, the covid-19 Novel Coronavirus did not discriminate in claiming the lives of many significant individuals in boxing and the sporting world in 2020.
The lucky survivor is IBHOF Hall of Fame referee Joe Cortez, age 77, who is still alive. Cortez officiated in over 900 fights as the man in the middle between 1979 and 2012.
Cortez has been hospitalized in Las Vegas, Nevada, since November 2020, and remains on an oxygen tube, since contracting the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus. He has now fortunately tested negative twice, a piece of good fortune. He will shortly be released from the hospital for rehabilitation, including learning to move his limbs after almost ten weeks bedridden and relearning basic life functions. Over 3,300 individuals with the Coronavirus have died in Nevada so far since the Pandemic began, over 366,000 have died in the United States, over 1,895,000 worldwide have died, of 21 million who have contracted the virus.
According to Cortez from his hospital bed in recent conversation from friend Carlos Gonzalez, This Coronavirus is serious. But I can say I am clean (in good health now). In the two tests they did (on me recently) I came out (COVID-19) negative. I no longer have the virus, and we (my medical team and I) are moving forward. I feel good. I had never been through something like this, and we have to learn to listen to the doctors. Keep a (our) distance, use the masks (for protection from the coronavirus), not be in large groups, and stay at home as much as possible. This is not a joke (the coronavirus Pandemic). It is real, and we have to take care of each other.”
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