Johnny Tapia, Champion Boxer Amid Chaos, Dies at 45

Johnny Tapia a prizefighter who won world titles in three weight classes in a chaotic life that included jail, struggles with mental illness, suicide attempts and five times being declared clinically dead as a result of drug overdoses, was found dead at his home in Albuquerque on Sunday. He was 45.   

 The Albuquerque police said an autopsy would be done in the next few days. Foul play is not suspected.

Tapia, who was 5 feet 6 inches, said the raw fury he displayed in winning his world titles came from the horrific memory of seeing his mother being kidnapped and murdered when he was 8. He said he saw every opponent as his mother’s killer.

Less than a year after his mother’s death, he recounted, his uncles were making him fight older boys in matches they bet on. If he lost, they beat him, he said.

Tapia’s father had vanished before he was born, and Tapia had thought he was dead until he turned up in 2010 after being released from a federal penitentiary and DNA tests confirmed his paternity. The son slipped into a lifelong pattern of binging on cocaine and alcohol, struggling with bipolar disorder, and cycling in and out of jail and drug rehabilitation programs.

“Mi vida loca,” or my crazy life, were the words tattooed on his belly. He had made that his motto after he thought he had outgrown his first, “baby-faced assassin.”

Tapia won his first 22 professional fights, then was suspended from boxing after failing three drug tests.

After three and a half years away from the ring, he returned to win five fights before defeating Henry Martinez to win the world super flyweight title (115-pound limit). Still undefeated after 18 more bouts, he beat Nana Konadu to win the bantamweight title (118 pounds) and become a two-division world champion.

In his first defeat, Tapia lost the bantamweight crown to Paulie Avala in June 1999 in what The Ring magazine called the “fight of the year.” He narrowly defeated Manuel Medina in 2002 to win the featherweight (126 pounds) title.

Mike Tyson called Tapia one of the greatest fighters ever. He won 59 fights, 30 by knockout; lost 5; and drew 2. He was knocked out only once.

His left jab was punishing, and he claimed not to mind being hit. He sometimes stuck out his tongue to taunt opponents.

“Johnny sees things well,” Freddie Roach, Tapia’s trainer and a member of the World Boxing Hall of Fame, said in an interview with Sports Illustrated in 2002. “Sometimes by the book, it would be wrong to do the things Johnny does, but he’s such a natural fighter, he gets away with it.”

John Lee Tapia liked to point out that he was born in Albuquerque on Friday the 13th in February 1967. Larry Merchant, the boxing analyst, told Playboy in 2004 that Tapia was “a five-to-one underdog to survive his own childhood.”

Tapia’s mother, Virginia, died on May 28, 1975, according to a police report that said her body was found stabbed 26 times with scissors and a screwdriver. Not included in the police report was young Johnny’s memory of being awakened by screaming and looking out the window to see his mother chained in the back of a pickup truck driving by the house, Sports Illustrated said.

He was brought up by his grandfather Miguel with eight other family members in a three-bedroom house in Albuquerque. Miguel, an amateur boxing champion, taught him pugilistic skills. Tapia was the 1983 National Golden Gloves light flyweight champion, and the 1985 Golden Gloves flyweight champion. His first pro fight was in 1988.

His past regularly came back to haunt him.

Just two and a half weeks before his loss to Ayala in 1999, the phone rang in the gym where Tapia was training. A police officer told him that his mother’s killing had been solved. The murderer had died in 1983 after stumbling drunk into the middle of a busy Albuquerque street where he was hit by three cars and dragged to his death. The investigation had been reopened at the behest of Tapia’s wife.

Tapia said the news about his mother’s killer upset him and might have contributed to his loss in the fight, but he considered it a “blessing” to finally know the truth.

In 1992, he met Teresa Chavez at a party and was determined to marry her. Realizing his habits, she at first resisted. Playboy reported that when they finally married, one of her cousins approached her and said, “If you want to see what you married, go look in the bathroom.”

She opened the bathroom door and found Tapia with a needle in his arm. He took the wedding cash and dumped her in a cheap hotel. The next day, he was in a hospital with an overdose. He had to be revived after his heart stopped beating, the first of at least five times this happened.

Their marriage lurched wildly up and down, as Mrs. Tapia struggled to provide stability. She became his manager.

It was almost the last straw when Tapia was again hospitalized for drug abuse and his wife’s brother and nephew died in a car crash on the way to visit him in the hospital. “It’s my fault,” Tapia said. “I killed them both.”

His wife somehow stayed. She survives him, along with their three children. He quit the ring several times, but could not seem to give it up. His last fight was in June 2011. He won a unanimous decision.

Tapia said he thought his tattoos of angels kept him from passing into the next world. He may or may not have considered this a good thing, his wife told Playboy.

“I don’t know how this story is going to end,” she said. “I’d love to think that in 30 years, we’ll be old together and surrounded by family. But when I ask Johnny how he sees himself in the future, he says he’s not even sure he’ll wake up tomorrow.”        

Paul Williams paralyzed after crash

Former two-time welterweight titlist Paul Williams faces his biggest fight, this one outside of the ring, after he was paralyzed from the waist down in a motorcycle accident Sunday morning in Atlanta.

George Peterson, Williams’ trainer, manager and father figure, said on Monday that Williams’ doctors said he would never walk again and that his boxing career is over.

“They’re saying he won’t walk again or box again,” said Peterson, who flew to Atlanta from Washington, D.C., where they were training for Williams’ next fight, on Sunday. “Paul is in denial right now. It’s been that way with him. You tell him he can’t or won’t do something, and he wants to prove you different. So whatever the doctors say, he’s not listening. But they say that (walking and boxing) is not going to happen.”

Just last week Williams had signed for a major fight. He was due to challenge junior middleweight titlist Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on Sept. 17 in the main event of a pay-per-view card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Peterson said Williams, who lives about an hour outside of Atlanta, had ridden his motorcycle from his home to Atlanta to attend the Sunday wedding of one of his brothers.

Peterson said that the accident occurred around 8 a.m. as Williams was riding to another brother’s home to get ready for the wedding, which took place later in the day.

Peterson said Williams, who was wearing his helmet, rode out of his lane to avoid a car that was moving into his lane, but that another car was coming toward him in the other direction. Peterson said Williams swerved to avoid the oncoming car, wound up riding up a steep embankment and lost control of the motorcycle before flying several feet in the air and landing on his back on the road. Peterson said one of the drivers of the other cars called 911.

Peterson said Williams, 30, is scheduled to have surgery Wednesday to stabilize the portion of his spinal cord that is intact and allows him to move his hands, arms, torso and head.

“The other part of his spinal chord is damaged and has eliminated his lower body movement,” Peterson said.

Peterson said he saw Williams at the hospital on Sunday several hours after the accident and that he was not in pain and was telling jokes.

“He’s telling jokes and saying if he doesn’t box again, he’ll do stand-up comedy. He’s in good spirits but he is also in denial,” Peterson said. “But he’s coherent. I had an excellent conversation with him. When I walked in the door (on Sunday) about 5:30 in the afternoon, he said he’d be ready to go back to camp on Monday. I guess I’m in denial, too, because I have seen him overcome so much adversity before and come back. We’ll pray about the situation.”

Peterson said if Wednesday’s surgery goes well, Williams would remain hospitalized for a few weeks before moving to a rehabilitation center.

“Hopefully, there will be no complications and he’ll be out in a few weeks,” Peterson said. “Paul would want all boxing fans to know that is not suffering and not in any pain. We appreciate their prayers.”

Williams (41-2, 27 KOs), who was backed by powerful adviser Al Haymon, was considered one of the top fighters in the world for several years and became a staple on HBO and Showtime. Besides winning a piece of the welterweight title twice, he also is a former interim junior middleweight titlist and owns a majority decision victory in an action-packed nontitle bout against Sergio Martinez, who went on to win the middleweight championship.

Williams outpointed a prime Antonio Margarito to win a welterweight title for the first time in July 2007. In his first defense in February 2008, Williams was stunningly upset by Carlos Quintana, losing the belt via unanimous decision.

In an immediate rematch four months later, Williams avenged the defeat and regained the title in dramatic fashion when he destroyed Quintana in the first round.

Williams would abandon the title and move up in weight because, as his promoter, Dan Goossen, continually preached the media, he was the most avoided fighter in the world and could not entice the best fighters to face him, particularly in the welterweight division, where the 6-foot-1 southpaw enjoyed considerable physical advantages over nearly every other contender.

In 2009, he scored a near-shutout of former undisputed junior middleweight champion and longtime pound-for-pound entrant Winky Wright before moving up to middleweight to face Martinez.

Williams, known for non-stop punching, won the nontitle fight in the all-action slugfest by majority decision in what turned out to be the biggest victory of his career as Martinez later captured the middleweight championship.

He and Williams met in a rematch in November 2010, this time for the 160-pound crown, and Martinez shockingly knocked Williams cold with a single punch in the second round for what was universally declared the knockout of the year.

Williams fought just once in 2011, escaping with a majority decision win last July against junior middleweight contender Erislandy Lara in Atlantic City, N.J. The decision was so controversial that the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board took the unprecedented step of suspending all three judges over their scoring of the fight.

Williams bounced back in February to roll to a shutout decision against Japan’s Nobuhiro Ishida, who had scored a first-round upset knockout of hot contender James Kirkland in 2011.

Then last week Williams landed the fight with Alvarez, hoping a convincing win against a relatively untested, but very popular, 21-year-old titleholder would put him back on top again.

“It was something we needed and a fight that Paul wanted,” Peterson said. “We were definitely up for it. We knew this was the biggest fight we could get, and we were already preparing for it. We were ready for a big fight.”

Berto tests positive for performance-enhancing drug

Boxer Andre Berto has tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance known as norandrosterone (also known as nandrolone), jeopardizing his June 23 world welterweight title fight against Oxnard’s Victor Ortiz at Staples Center.

Berto’s first and second “B” urine sample have each been declared positive by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Assn.

Promoter Richard Schaefer said the June 23 bout will go on with Ortiz facing another opponent if Berto is not available; Schaefer expects to have Berto’s situation clarified by the California State Athletic Commission by Monday.

Berto’s promoter Lou DiBella said he was still gathering details Friday. “I’ve always been pro-testing and said I believed in that even if one of my own would ever be involved,” DiBella said.

Ortiz defeated Berto in the 2011 fight of the year, in which both men were knocked down.

Berto has trained during the past year-plus with Victor Conte, who was sent to prison for steroid distribution and money laundering after heading the infamous BALCO operation that counted all-time home run king Barry Bonds, Olympic-champion sprinter Marion Jones and boxer Shane Mosley as clients.  

In a prepared statement, Conte said:

“I had absolutely nothing to do Andre Berto’s positive drug test for nandrolone.

“Andre enrolled in the VADA drug testing program in early 2012. While using my nutritional products and protocols, Andre’s blood and urine were randomly tested twice before his recent bicep injury, and all tests were negative.

“After his positive test was revealed, Andre admitted that he recently took some supplements that were not provided by me and did so without my knowledge. It is possible that one of these supplements was contaminated with trace amounts of nandrolone and caused his positive test result.”