It was only after much adversity early in his life that Tapia found the fame and bright lights of the boxing world.
After witnessing his Mom being kidnapped, raped, hanged, and stabbed at age 8, he went to live with his grandmother where his boxing career started at age 9.
Tapia rose to prominence during his amateur career after a national Golden Gloves title run.
His professional career began on March 25th, 1988.
On October 12th, 1994 Tapia won the WBO super-flyweight title in a historic war against Henry Martinez that won't soon be forgotten by fans.
In spite of his success inside the ring, Tapia had many struggles outside of it including cocaine addiction.
In 1999, Tapia felt the pain of his first loss in his 48 fight career, losing a a tough fought decision and the WBA strap to Paulie Ayala in the 'Fight Of The Year'. Later that year, Tapia was hospitalized and near death from a cocaine overdose.
Almost ten years later in 2007, Tapia attempted suicide with a drug overdose that required hospitalization.
When his brother in-law and nephew were on their way to see him the next day, they were killed in a car accident.
On February 11, 2009, Tapia was taken into custody in Albuquerque for a violation of parole related to cocaine use.
Tapia was set to make an appearance June 30th at the Boulder County Fairgrounds as he was the trainer for Josh 'The Pitbull' Torres in the main-event of 'Warriors Quest.'
He will be greatly missed.
If you liked this, check out the links below:
http://www.colorado-mma-colorado-boxing.com/2012/05/ufc-146-full-results.html
http://www.colorado-mma-colorado-boxing.com/2012/05/top-5-must-wins-of-ufc-146.html
You can follow 'Uppercuts Inc.' using either your Google login, Email, or RSS feed at the top of the site or on Facebook at the pages below:
Colorado, Wyoming MMA: http://facebook.com/MenMustFight
Colorado, Wyoming Boxing: http://facebook.com/ColoradoBoxingNews
See you at the fights!
