Johnny Bos, the boxing matchmaker whose boisterous personality and colorful promotion played an integral role in Lewiston fighter Joey Gamache’s two world championships in the early 1990s, has died.

Bos, 61, passed away at his home in Clearwater, Fla. He had been battling congestive heart failure for several months, according to friends in the fight game.

“This is truly gut wrenching,” Gamache’s sister, Terry, wrote in a post on Facebook. “If it weren’t for Johnny, my family may not be where we are today.”

Bos shepherded Gamache’s meteoric rise through the ranks to a world title in June 1991, when Gamache defeated Jerry Ngobeni by a 10th-round technical knockout at the old Lewiston Raceway.

When the Gamache camp sued the New York State Athletic Commision in 2006, alleging negligence in its handling of the weigh-in prior to Gamache’s career-ending knockout at the hands of Arturo Gatti six years earlier, Bos spoke on his behalf, both in court and in the media.

The court ultimately found negligence but ruled that it had no impact on the outcome of the fight, and no damages were awarded.

Bos subsequently left New York for Florida and had been out of the sport for several years at the time of his death.

“It’s the passing of an era,” promoter Lou DiBella said in an interview with the New York Times, “He was a Damon Runyonesque character. Johnny Bos touched a lot of guys. You can go through a laundry list of fighters who have ties to Johnny Bos, a lot of whom also forgot about him and left him in the rearview mirror once they made it.

“Johnny was a legend. He was like one of the giant characters of the sport.”