Hours after doctors declared three-time world champion Hector “Macho” Camacho brain dead after being gunned down in a car, the fallen fighter’s son said they would keep him on life support.

“It’s up to God,” Hector Camacho junior, known as “Machito” said of the family’s refusal to turn off his ventilator, despite medical pessimism.

Camacho junior arrived in Puerto Rico late Thursday and immediately headed to his stricken father’s bedside at the hospital where he has been treated since being shot in the neck on Tuesday.

“Papi was a great fighter, a warrior and now he is fighting for his life and we have to let him fight until the end,” he said.

Ernesto Torres, director of the Centro Medico hospital in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, said earlier that Camacho had showed no sign of brain activity.

“Clinically, Camacho is brain dead,” he said, adding that it was up to the family to decide whether to disconnect the respirator that is keeping the former boxer alive.

The announcement came some 30 hours after Camacho, 50, was shot while in a car in San Juan. It was not immediately clear if he was deliberately targeted or simply caught up in a random act of violence.

Ismael Leandry, a former manager who was a key figure in Camacho’s ring career, said that he res-pected the doctors’ downcast opinion, but added: “This is a strong man and we have faith that he will rise from this bed. While there is movement there is life.”

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