Johnny Tapia Dead at 45: Champion Boxer Escaped Death 4 Times
Five-time boxing champion and self-confessed born again Christian, Johnny Tapia, whose career was marked by drug and alcohol abuse, has been found dead in his home. The 45-year-old's death has not been classified as suspicious but authorities are investigating.
According to reports, Tapia had cheated death four times before. "My name is Johnny Lee Tapia," he wrote in his autobiography "Mi Vida Loca." "I was born on Friday the 13th, a Friday in February of 1967. To this day I don't know if that makes me lucky or unlucky. When I was eight I saw my mother murdered. I never knew my father. He was murdered before I was born."
"I was raised as a pit bull," he added. "Raised to fight to the death. Four times I was declared dead. Four times they wanted to pull life support. And many more times I came close to dying."
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In 1997, he was hospitalized after suffering an overdose of cocaine; he was able to recover from that incident. Then in 2009, he was arrested for violating the terms of his parole, related to drug use. It was the last time he was arrested for drug possession.
Johnny Tapia's early life was hugely traumatic; his father was reportedly murdered while his mother was pregnant with him. The when he was eight-years-old, his mother was kidnapped, raped, hanged, repeatedly stabbed, and left for dead by her assailant. Reports state that Tapia was awakened by her screams and saw her chained to the back of a pickup truck. She died four days after the attack without regaining consciousness. He was raised by his grandmother and started boxing at just nine.
He last fought in 2011, after a career filled with five championships in three different weight classes. Fans across the globe are already mourning Tapia's death.
"RIP to Johnny Tapia, who I liked very much personally despite his enormous demons," tweeted Dan Rafael.
"He's come so close so often to death, so it's hard to believe that it's finally happened," his friend Dennis Latta told KOB. "I remember in Vegas one time he was in a coma for days and they didn't think he was going to make it, he was in critical condition. To realize that now he's gone, it's really a surprise, I thought he was just invulnerable, it was water off a duck's back every time he came close to death."
