His Career Is All About Living ‘La Vida Loca’

He is 35 years old. He has been through enough battles, both inside and outside the ring, to make him feel like 65, his boxing style requiring him to sometimes receive almost as much punishment as he inflicts. He has won five titles, fought many of the big names and been one of his sport’s most popular, colorful and controversial figures for 15 years.

So what’s left for Johnny Tapia? Why does he keep fighting?

“Because,” he said, “it’s the only way I can hit somebody without going to jail.”

The man’s not kidding. Violence has been a part of Tapia’s life, what he calls “mi vida loca” or “my crazy life” as long as he can remember. At least in the ring, he gets rewarded for it.

By the time Tapia was 8 years old, both of his parents had been murdered. Also as a youngster, he was a passenger in a bus that tumbled off a cliff. Several passengers died in the wreck, but Tapia, then 7, escaped with a concussion.

As an adult, his troubles continued, but by then he was causing his own problems. Tapia has a 21-page police record in Albuquerque, where he was born and raised and served time in jail on several occasions. He has been charged with selling shaved soap to an undercover cop while claiming it was cocaine, intimidating a witness and assaulting his wife, Teresa, with a gun. He once bragged that the Bernalillo County Detention Center in Albuquerque was his “second home.”

In 1991, Tapia was banned from boxing for 3 1/2 years for cocaine addiction. He has overdosed twice and attempted suicide several times. He was once thrown from a car in front of an Albuquerque fire station, suffering from an overdose. He was revived at a nearby hospital and, by the time police arrived, had escaped out a window.

Tapia has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which may help explain his behavior.

Considering all Tapia has been through, the challenge facing him tonight -- imposing as it is -- is hardly worth sweating over. Tapia will enter the ring in Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena for tonight’s 12-round main event to face arguably the best featherweight in the world. Marco Antonio Barrera (55-3, 39 knockouts) is coming off a close but unanimous decision over Erik Morales in June. Barrera has won six consecutive matches, including a victory last year over previously undefeated Naseem Hamed.

Tapia (52-2-2, 28), a 4-1 underdog, has won four in a row since losing a decision to Paulie Ayala in October 2000. Ayala also handed Tapia his other defeat, winning by decision in 1999.

Although both fighters are coming off victories over titleholders, neither has a championship belt. It’s another sign the power of the sanctioning organizations continues to wane.

Barrera had announced before fighting Morales that he wouldn’t accept Morales’ World Boxing Council featherweight title if he won because he refused to pay the sanctioning fees. Tapia accepted the International Boxing Federation featherweight crown he won from Manuel Medina in April, but then was stripped of it.

“They took it away from me,” Tapia said. “Every fighter in the world always looks forward to getting a belt. I won the belt by working hard and fighting hard. Then, they took it away from me.”

It’s a little more complicated than that. Tapia was obligated to fight Juan Marquez, the IBF’s mandatory challenger. When Tapia decided instead to fight Barrera, he could have appealed for an exemption. But under IBF rules, Tapia would have been required to pay $20,000 for a hearing; he refused.

In the past, that might have killed this fight. Promoters and television executives have long demanded titles to bestow legitimacy on their matches. But they are realizing it’s the names on the trunks, not the titles on the belts, that draw the fans.

And Barrera and Tapia offer recognizable names.

One thing Tapia is not offering this time is trash talk. Many of his fights turned bitter in the days before the match, the threats and verbal attacks drowning out serious discussion of fighting styles and strategy.

Even Barrera, who usually shows nothing but class and offers nothing but respect for an opponent, got caught in ugly personal attacks in his second fight with Morales after Morales won a close but controversial decision the first time around.

But for this fight, both men have stuck to the high road. They are old friends whose families are also close. Tapia refers to Barrera as “the king of the featherweights.”

But that doesn’t mean this will be a love fest.

“If I were the oddsmaker, I would make it 99-1 [in Tapia’s favor],” Tapia said. “You will have to kill me in the ring to beat me.

“I am willing to get cut. I am willing to get black eyes, broken noses, broken ribs. Whatever he wants to do to me, I will still be there. I know I can go to the hospital and still get fixed up.”

Sounds like another crazy night.

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Fernando Vargas, who tested positive for an illegal steroid after his September fight against Oscar De La Hoya, will finally get his long-awaited hearing before the Nevada State Athletic Commission sometime during the final two weeks of November. The commission is considering a suspension of up to a year.... De La Hoya, hoping to lure Felix Trinidad out of retirement for a rematch against the man who beat him in 1999, is still trying to schedule a meeting with Trinidad in his native Puerto Rico.