Tapia Becomes Title Headliner in Vegas Show

The grudge match was decided by whipping combinations and feints, daring taunts and a biting, baiting attack.

Johnny Tapia fired fast, kept himself away from Danny Romero’s best shots, engaged in mock theatrics throughout, and did a head-over-boots flip as the bell sounded to end his virtuoso performance Friday night.

In a passionate contrast to the flaccid heavyweight battles that have mucked up this sport, Tapia won an unanimous 12-round decision over Romero, his bitter Albuquerque rival, to unify two of the junior-bantamweight belts before a heavily pro-Tapia crowd of 7,954 at Thomas & Mack Center.

After the decision was announced, Tapia, who has gone through years of drug problems and served time in jail, raced over to his wife, Teresa, and said five words before breaking into tears:

“He don’t hit so hard!”

Later, Tapia, who switched trainers twice in the last month, said his game plan against Romero’s vaunted punching power made this long-awaited fight a simple one.

“I never wanted to knock him out--I just wanted to punish him,” said Tapia (41-0-2), who retained his World Boxing Organization belt and took Romero’s International Boxing Federation title.

“The game plan was to stick and move, keep moving to my right and make it an easy fight. And that’s what it was. It was so easy.”

Tapia, 30, said he tried to shake Romero’s hand after the fight, but was rebuffed by Romero’s father, Danny Sr., who trained Tapia briefly and screamed at referee Mitch Halpern repeatedly during the bout that Tapia was butting his son.

“I was a man, I wanted to tell him to keep his head up, that he did his best,” Tapia said. “But his father was an ass--so that’s how I’m going to leave it.”

Romero, 23, who suffered his second loss against 30 victories, said he veered away from his bombing style to box the quicker Romero, but he looked tight early.

Romero landed his best punches in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds, then lost almost all of the last four rounds on the three judges’ cards.

“I thought I won,” Romero said. “A few things maybe I could’ve done better, but that’s the way it goes. It didn’t come out the way it should’ve, but hey, more power to him.”

Judges Clark Sammartino and Jerry Roth scored it 116-112 for Tapia, and Glen Hamada scored it 115-113. The Times scored it 116-112 for Tapia.

After the see-saw early and middle rounds, this fight turned in the ninth round, when Tapia stepped up his sharp, countering combinations as Romero continued to miss, and Romero’s nose began leaking blood as he began to tire.

Beginning with the ninth--with two of the judges’ scorecards even after eight--Tapia began cavorting in earnest, shoving his chin out right in front of Romero, then flashing to his left and right to avoid the shot.

Tapia also pulled out the old bolo punch, raising his right hand high in the air, shaking it around, then firing at Romero’s chin. He mocked Romero every time he got hit with a solid shot, and grabbed Romero’s face after the 11th-round bell before Halpern stepped in to separate them.

“Nobody’s going to put me down,” Tapia said. “I promised my wife I wasn’t going to show off, and I did. It’s instinct out there.”

Romero came out charging in the 12th and final round, but that only served to enhance Tapia’s footwork, and his playing to the crowd.

Will there be a rematch?

“No,” Tapia said. “This was a big fight, the biggest of my life. But it was too easy to do it again.”

In a bloody junior-lightweight fight on the undercard, 4-foot-10 (Baby) Jake Matlala, the shortest fighter in the sport, scored an upset ninth-round technical-knockout victory over former champion Michael Carbajal to take the minor International Boxing Assn. title.

Referee Richard Steele stopped it on the advice of ringside doctor Flip Homansky because of deep cuts on the corners of Carbajal’s eyes, caused by Matlala’s relentless forward press.

The first cut, on Carbajal’s left eye, opened up in the sixth. The second, on his left, started bleeding in the final moments of the seventh.

By the end of the eighth and the early part of the ninth, Carbajal’s face was painted in blood. Steele ended it at 1:24 of the ninth.

“He has a lot of heart--kids should look up to him,” Carbajal (45-4) said of Matlala, who raised his record to 46-10-2, with 22 KOs. “I landed some real good shots. . . . I’m surprised they stopped it, but I had some vision problems.”