NEW YORK -- Hundreds of fans of Hector "Macho" Camacho turned out Friday for the public wake in the neighbourhood where the slain former world champion fighter grew up in New York.

A carriage drawn by white horses carried Camacho's body around the streets of Spanish Harlem, taking the casket cover with a Puerto Rican flag to St. Cecilia's Catholic Church.

On a frigid afternoon, people waited patiently on the crowded sidewalks around the church. They chanted "Macho time!" -- the phrase Camacho regularly used before his fights.

Camacho, a native of Puerto Rico, was shot in the face Nov. 20 while sitting in a parked car with a friend outside a bar in Bayamon, his hometown in the U.S. territory. Police have said they have suspects but have not yet arrested anyone for the shooting.

Camacho, who was 50 when he died, moved to New York as a child.