Tapia Documentary on HBO

In a recent documentary from HBO Sports, chronicles the story of former boxing great Johnny Tapia.  Tapia was notoriously known for his wild fighting style in the 90s and drug problems with cociane and being arrested and imprisoned for it. However, this documentary shows Tapia's perspective among all of the controversy. Born and raised in Alberquere, New Mexico, raised by a single mother and grandparents until when Tapia was 8 yr old, his mother was brutally murdered by being stabbed 22 times and possibly raped. Tapia would a later find out the killer who was linked to his mother's death was her boyfriend and his associates at the time. Yet, this scarred Tapia throughout his life, which lead to bad decisions growing up, involving gangs and heavy cocaine usage, However, Tapia found hope through boxing and began training and it served as physical and physcologial therapy for him, based on his past. Tapia was talented and in the 1990s, Tapai had won titles in the Supeflyweight, Flywieght, Bantamweight classes. Despite his success, Tapai would still use cocaine regularly and he was imprisoned in 1992 for drug posession and his boxing license was revoked. In 1994, he was released from prison and gained his license back. Personally, he had overdosed on cocaine over 5 times and was prononced dead and revived back to life more than once.  But in the 2000s, Tapia began his sobriety, which lead to titles for IBF Featherweight champion in 2002.  But, by 2005,at 38, Tapia was losing his touch an lost to Sandro Marcos and by 2007 Tapia ha reitred from boxing.  In the years following , Tapia, would revert back to cocaine usage and violated his parole on Feb 11th, 2009. He was sent to prison for about  6 months.  In 2010, Tapia decided to make on final fight and retire for good against Jorge Alberto Reyes on March 6th. He won decisively.

In the final two years of his life, Tapia worked as a trainer and promoter to remain in the sport of boxing. He was sober and done with all drug usage until his tragic death on May 27th 2012. Tapia died of heart failure and no drug-realated usage. Yet, cocaine uage throughout his life had an effect on his physical health. Tapia was 45 years old. His record as a fighter are: 66 fights, 59 wins, 5 losses and 2 draws. Tapia won in 5 different weight classes and nearly half of his wins were knockouts.(30) Tapia is dearly missed by his wife and children and the entire boxing community. Tapia was known as "Mi Vida Loca", which means "My crazy life" in Spanish. His life was crazy, but exciting at the same time!