Tapia dies; Williams paralyzed
philly.com | May 29th 2012 3:01 AMJOHNNY TAPIA, the five-time boxing champion whose turbulent career was marked by cocaine addiction, alcohol, depression and run-ins with the law, was found dead Sunday at his home in Albuquerque, N.M. He was 45.
Authorities were called to the house at about 7:45 p.m. on Sunday, spokesman Robert Gibbs said. The death didn't appear to be suspicious, he said.
Tapia won five championships in three weight classes, winning the WBA bantamweight title, the IBF and WBO junior bantamweight titles and the IBF featherweight belt.
He was regarded as the consummate underdog by his fans. The more trouble he found outside the ring - including several stints in jail - the more they rallied around him.
In a 1990s-era feud with fellow Albuquerque boxer and former world champion Danny Romero, Tapia's fans anointed him with the slang Spanish title of "Burque's Best."
But his life was also marked by tragedy. He was orphaned at 8, his mother stabbed 26 times with a screwdriver and left to die.
In 2007, he was hospitalized after an apparent cocaine overdose. Several days later, his brother-in-law and his nephew were killed in car accident on their way to Albuquerque to see him.
Tapia was banned from boxing for 3 1/2 years in the early '90s because of his cocaine addiction. But he knocked out Henry Martinez to win the WBO bantamweight title in 1994, and won four more championships over the next 8 years. He last fought in June, outpointing Mauricio Pastrana in an eight-round decision. He finished with a 59-5-2 record.
Gibbs said an autopsy will be performed in the next few days.
In other boxing news:
* Two-time welterweight champion Paul Williams was paralyzed Sunday after being involved in a motorcycle crash in the Atlanta suburbs and doctors said it is unlikely he will continue his career, his manager said.
"From the waist down, he has absolutely no movement. He's in very good spirits, though," George Peterson told the Associated Press from his home in Aiken, S.C. "He still believes he's going to fight again."
Williams, 30, severed his spinal cord after falling on his back and head when he was thrown from his motorcycle around 7 a.m. Sunday in Marietta, Ga., Peterson said.
The crash happened after Williams tried to avoid another car in the next lane that was negotiating a curve and then had to maneuver to avoid an oncoming car. Williams was in the area to attend his brother's wedding Monday afternoon and was returning from the bachelor party, Peterson told the New York Daily News.
Williams was scheduled to challenge WBC 154-pound champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez on Sept. 15 in Las Vegas.
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