Tapia's Story Cries for Happier Ending
Albuquerque Journal - January 12, 2003
In the good times, on his better days, Johnny Tapia would talk of a future beyond boxing.
He would raise a family, he said. He would train the stable of fighters his wife, Teresa, managed.
He and Teresa had money in the bank, thanks to the millions Johnny had earned in the ring. They owned several homes. They would grow old together, and life would be fine.
But in the bad times, on his darker days, the Albuquerque native has always seemed hell-bent on seeing to it he had no future at all.
On Saturday -- the worst of times, the darkest of days -- he may finally have succeeded.
Tapia lay in critical condition in a Las Vegas, Nev., hospital room, unable to breathe on his own, after a thus-far unexplained head trauma. He's 35, a month and two days short of his 36th birthday.
It's unclear whether this was a suicide attempt. It's unclear whether drugs were involved. It's unclear whether, or how, it's related to a felony drug paraphernalia charge leveled against him Friday near Kingman, Ariz.
What's clear is that Tapia's future, the one he has mortgaged time and time again, is in deepest peril.
Is this, then, how it ends?
If so, what a hollow and wasteful conclusion to what could have -- should have -- been a story of triumph.
For me, the story began in February 1983. I first laid eyes on Johnny Tapia as, just days after his 16th birthday, he won the New Mexico Golden Gloves title at 106 pounds. One didn't have to be a boxing expert to see this kid was special: fearless, unspeakably quick, deceptively powerful, with a style all his own.
He had a style all his own, for better and for worse, out of the ring, too.
A street kid with little to show for his high school diploma, Tapia was as poorly equipped to deal with real life as anyone I've met. Throughout the 20 years I've known him, he always has relied on others to make his decisions for him.
"He's like a child," Teresa Tapia said in 1995 of her husband, then 28 years old. "That's what he is -- a child."
Yet, like Muhammad Ali -- another great fighter with an allergy to formal education -- Tapia possessed a wit and an intelligence all his own.
That squeaky voice, that lopsided grin, that boundless energy. He could be irresistible.
Yet, the other Johnny was a scofflaw and a hoodlum.
He piled up traffic tickets faster than he did victories. Most of the scars on his face were inflicted by knives, keys and can openers -- not by gloved fists.
There was a wildness within, an angry emptiness that only boxing seemed to cure. And he couldn't box all the time.
Then came the drugs. Cocaine was easier to secure than a boxing match. It provided an even more intense high. He became lost, a slave to his habit.
Then he was found. Tapia's return to boxing in March 1994, after 31/2-year absence, was the stuff of which books are written and movies are made. Indeed, in the wake of his July 1997, victory over fellow Albuquerquean Danny Romero, a movie and a book were contemplated.
The storyline was compelling. The supporting cast was in place.
But the lead character kept losing his.
In 2000, Tapia was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I once chastised him in print for his inability to accept delivery on all the good things he had earned and that his talent had bestowed upon him.
In turn, I was chastised. People familiar with bipolar disorder pointed out that it's a disease and not a character flaw. Tapia wasn't to blame, they said. I understand.
And, yet, this is how I feel: I'm angry. At Johnny or at fate, I'm not sure.
I do know this. Many people, many times, have given of themselves to bring Johnny back from oblivion: Teresa, his wife and manager; the late Paul Chavez, his first pro trainer and manager, who loved him as would a father; his grandparents, Miguel and Esther Tapia; others whom I've forgotten to mention or don't even know.
And now this.
Has Johnny cheated life, or has life cheated him?
