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Tapia wins fourth world title New champ hands Julio first loss in six years
Posted: Sunday January 09, 2000 01:11 AM
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Johnny Tapia can finally celebrate the new millenium -- with a fourth world title and his career back on the rise. Six months after losing his WBA bantamweight title to Paulie Ayala, Tapia on Saturday took the WBO bantamweight title away from Jorge Eliecer Julio Fighting before a partisan and raucous hometown crowd of 11,153 that spent much of the night chanting "Johnny, Johnny,", the 32-year-old Tapia used a steady and punishing left jab and an occasional overhand right to hand Julio only the second loss of his career and snap the Colombian's 16-fight winning streak. "Now I can finally relax," said Tapia, who after his loss to Ayala -- the first of his career -- took five months away from the ring. He then made his return by taking on a fighter who hadn't lost since dropping a unanimous decision to American Junior Jones in a WBA title fight on Oct. 23, 1993. "I didn't have a Christmas. I didn't have a New Year's," said Tapia."I'm going to have one tonight." Tapia now is 47-1-2 and Julio 42-2. Tapia's trainer Freddie Roach said Tapia may now move up a weight class to 122 pounds, but not if he can get a rematch with Ayala. "I think Johnny can fight 10 times better. Ayala fought his best," Roach said. Tapia won his latest world title in the same arena -- The Pit -- where he won his first. He stopped Henry Martinez in the 11th round to win the WBO junior bantamweight title in October 1994. He took fellow Albuquerque bantamweight Danny Romero's IBF bantamweight title in a July 1997 unification bout in Las Vegas and beat Nana Yaw Konadu for the WBA bantamweight title in December 1998. He lost that belt to Ayala in a slugfest in Las Vegas last June. "I've always been down in life and I've always been able to pick myself up," said Tapia, whose career has been a saga of triumph and tragedy. His mother was murdered when Tapia was eight years old and he was banned from boxing for 3 1/2 years in the early '90s because of a cocaine addiction. "It's a tough, tough world that I've lived in and now I'm very, very happy," Tapia said. The hard-punching Julio was the aggressor through most of the fight but had trouble getting inside Tapia's left jab. When Tapia's jab didn't slow down Julio, the champion's overhand right did. The three judges scored the fight 118-109, 116-111 and 119-108, for Tapia. Tapia repeatedly complained to referee Mike Ortega that Julio was leading with his elbows and Julio was penalized a point in the seventh round. 'I won the fight,' said Julio. 'They took a point away from me and it was him who was head butting me. But all that is OK. It's his time.' Tapia was so confident of victory that he dropped his hands midway through the final round and dared Julio to connect. With Tapia's head bobbing and weaving, Julio's punches hit mostly air. Earlier, heavyweight Francois Botha (40-2-1, 25 KOs) stopped Steve Pannell (33-7, 27 KOs) at the 2:08 mark of the first round. Botha, who briefly held the IBF world title in 1995 but was stripped of it after testing positive for steroids, knocked Pannell down three times. In another undercard bout, Romero (37-3-1) scored a first round knockout of Rodolfo Blanco (28-15-1) of Colombia. The end came 56 seconds into the fight with a body shot sending Blanco down for the count. In other bouts, Omar Sheika (19-1) of Paterson, N.J., took a unanimous decision over Simon Brown (47-12) of Jamaica in a super middleweight bout; featherweight Raymundo Beltran (4-1) of Phoenix took a split decision over Juan Martinez (7-12) of Albuquerque; David Sample (27-6-1) of Las Vegas, Nev., took a unanimous decision over Juan Torres (11-3) of San Diego in a lightweight bout; welterweight Corey Johnson (28-2-2) scored a unanimous decision over Sam Harvey (11-3) of Akron, Ohio, and light heavyweight Jose Luis Rivera (31-2-1) decisioned Ka-Dy King (21-3) of Detroit.
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