On Sunday night, the news
broke over the Worldwide Web that Johnny Tapia was found dead in his
Albuquerque, New Mexico home at the age of 45. You just had the feeling that
the man who had been given several reprieves in the past would not be cheating
death this time around. There was a certain sense of finality to this time. And
indeed it's true (kob.com/article/stories/S26).
On Sunday night, I tweeted
out my thoughts on the sudden but not completely unexpected passing of Tapia:
“I've had a few hours to
digest the death of Johnny Tapia. He was among the first generation of world-class
boxers I got to cover...”
“But a troubled man who
cheated death three times (actually five) finally succumbed. You always had the
feeling this is the way it was going to end”
“Tapia was never supposed to
even make this far. Some will call his passing premature; honestly, he made it
a lot further than expected”
“A troubled and turbulent
soul can now find solace. Inside a #boxing ring was the only time Tapia was ever
truly at peace...”
“Yes, the end may seem
tragic, but even then, Johnny Tapia still beat the odds. That's how much he
overcame from the very start #boxing”
“But it's time to pay
tribute; ‘Mi Vida Loca’ has come to an end. Rest in peace, Johnny Tapia.”
Honestly, I'm not sure I
really have much more to add. To me, Tapia was a troubled soul from the very
beginning who could never really outrun his past. He was last seen by the
boxing community at a fight several months ago (if I recall correctly, the
third match-up between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez) and he seemed to
be in a good place and content with his life. But you always got the sense it
was just a temporary state for him. Happiness was never going to be his
destiny. It just wasn't meant to be.
He himself told close
associates he was surprised he even made it to the age of 45. Bob Case, his
adviser, who later became one his closest friends, recalls hearing stories from
Tapia while taking walks in Big Bear during his training camps that had him
crying throughout their strolls. He recounts one particular story of when, as a
young child, he was put into fights with kids much older than him. If he didn't
beat them, he'd have hot coffee poured on top of him and then get locked in a
closet for hours as punishment for not coming out victorious in what amounted
to nothing more than human cockfights.
There are other stories he
says he simply will not repeat.
This guy never really had a
shot at a normal life. We know all about his ring exploits but honestly, those
were Tapia's easiest fights. Real life was his toughest foe. If there were any
stability and tranquility in his world, it was his wife, Teresa, who, through
turbulent times, was as loyal and steadfast as humanly possible. Unfortunately,
it's been said that while she was his wife, cocaine was his mistress.
Common sense says that we
probably don't need an autopsy to find out the cause of his death but what we
should focus and celebrate is that for 45 years, he battled like hell.
CIVIL WAR
One day Tapia will be
inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He finished a career that
saw him capture five world titles with a record of 59-5-2 (30). He is arguably the
best 115-pound champion who ever was but if there's a night that will always be
associated with Tapia's career, it might the night of July 18th, 1997.
Much like his career and life, that night was filled with turmoil. It was his
bout against his archrival Danny Romero, who fought for the supremacy of their
hometown. But Albuquerque simply could not stage this fight due to how fierce
the feelings were between the two factions of fans.
Bob Arum, whose company, Top
Rank, promoted that event, recalled, “The authorities didn't want it there. It
was almost like two gangs.”
So this grudge match was
placed at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas and then summarily bounced due to
security concerns.
“The fight was scheduled to
take place within a couple of weeks after the Holyfield-Tyson fight and there
was the whole riot in the casino and the stolen chips and everything,” said Arum,
speaking of the infamous “Bite Fight” and the ensuing aftermath at the MGM
Grand. “And Arthur Goldberg, who was a real creep, who was the head of the Hilton
and he made up some bullsh*t thing that we hadn't gotten an insurance
certificate in at the right time, a liability certificate, which of course you
always gave the last week. And he threw us out of the Hilton, in which case, we
made an arrangement with Caesars [Palace] to be the host casino and put in the
Thomas and Mack [Center] and of course, even though there was bad blood between
Tapia's group and Romero's group coming from the same hometown, there wasn't
one incident there and the fight went off very well. We did very well.”
Tapia won a unanimous
decision over Romero to add the IBF junior bantamweight belt to the WBO strap
he already held. The most indelible moment of that night took place before a
punch was ever thrown. As Tapia entered the ring, he stopped at the ring apron,
looked out at the crowd (which had more of his supporters), pounded his heart
and pointed up at the sky. To this day, I'm not sure if I've ever heard a
crowd erupt the way they did.
When asked what he will
remember about Tapia, who spent a good portion of his career under the Top Rank
banner, Arum stated, “He was, first of all, just by being around him that he
wasn't a normal kind of person. He was very mercurial; he couldn't absorb
details. He had like no attention span but deep down, you knew he was a good,
good guy. He was warm and sorta lovable but, obviously, wasn't a normal kind of
person.”
