Crime in Sports - #367 - Cocaine Is My Mistress - Johnny Tapia: Part 1

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

This week, we dip back into the brain damage sports to bring the tale of a man, who had a life straight out of a movie that would be considered unrealistic, because of the pure craziness involved. We have a murder, while he's still in the womb, more death & murder, before the age of 8. He also joined a gang, had a major concussion, and fought drunken adults for money, at the behest of his grandfather. All before the age of 12. Then he starts boxing, and gets VERY into cocaine! Pure crazy!Watch a pregnant woman be launched from a bus window when you're 7, fight adult men at age 10, so your grandfather can win a few bets, and love cocaine more than ship captains love ships with Johnny Tapia!!Check us out, every Tuesday!We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can listen to Crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Discover all the best in audiobooks, podcasts, and originals featuring authentic Canadian voices and celebrity talent, like Brendan Fraser and Luke Kirby's latest sci-fi adventure, The Downloaded. A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, now available wherever you get your podcasts, you'll hear strange, dark, and mysterious stories about inexplicable encounters, shocking disappearances, true crime cases, and everything in between. So go listen to Mr. Ballin Podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody and welcome back to Crime and Sports! Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed.

My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another... This is... Wow. This is a classic brain damage meets heroin. Like, that's... Oh, terrific. If you get someone who is a brain-damaged junkie,

you really got something to deal with with crime and sports i mean wow been punched in the head a lot and maybe the maybe the worst childhood of anyone we've ever talked about possibly which is saying something here so yeah it is we'll get into this i'm telling you this the table is set for one a classic episode this week i can't wait but before we get to that quickly, head over to shutupandgivememurder.com. Get your merch, get your t-shirts, and get your tickets to live shows, of course, for Small Town Murder. We have a few more with tickets left remaining here. Chicago, August 12th.

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You're going to get access to all of this. One crime in sports, one small town murder. And this week, we're going to do for crime in sports, theme park disasters, part two.

Part two. I'm so excited for this. We left off in like 1985, I think, so we're going to do for crime and sports theme park disasters. Part two. I'm so excited for this. We left off in like 1985, I think. So we're going to have some modern day theme park. It's going to get. Yeah. We get ambitious with theme parks in the 90s. And so people launch.

Make it go. People launch way further off of roller coasters by like 95. It's going to be a good time here. And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about the Stanford Prison Experiment, which we've been asked to talk about a ton where they did an experiment at Stanford, and they took a bunch of psych students, and they said, hey, half-year guards, half-year prisoners, I wonder what's going to happen. And it was fucked up.

So we'll get into all of that. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you do all of that stuff. Now, needless to say, say we got to get into this it's time for the lunatic of the week here and holy shit this is wild here it is Johnny Lee or John straight John John

Lee Anthony Tapia Johnny Tapia he's got two the boxer two middle names yeah Lee Anthony Tapia. His nickname is Mi Vida Loca. Oh, yeah. That tells you a lot right there.

That's his nickname. And I would have to say. My Crazy Life? Yeah, My Crazy Life. And that is an understatement. I mean, this guy, I don't even know what to say. I'm not even going to preface it. Let's just get into it.

Before we even start. Normally, we start out with he was born on this date. But before we say he was even born, in the womb, let's say five months in the womb. So it's just starting to come around here. Grace. We're going to call Grace in the womb. For the first time ever, we're calling Grace in the womb. Grace at the time ever we're calling grace in the race at the ultrasound and the little flicker well yes because allegedly his father was murdered before he was born oh my god while his mother was pregnant with him so he didn't die he was murdered he was murdered before

he was born and that's maybe the easiest part of his life so far his father's been murdered yeah there's we'll talk about that later. Cause there's some other crazy shit that's going on. It's well, that's a, that's a, it's all, everything here starts in New Mexico with him where a lot of crazy comes from

Albuquerque. So that's from Albuquerque. Yeah. Which anybody we've ever talked about on crime and sports from New Mexico, the, the, with the East boys, I believe Cody and his other

anybody like that they're extra crazy yeah i don't know if there's some leftover radiation or something from the testing in the 50s or what here of bombs but there's some brain damage occlusion and it's so flat so it's like you're away from everybody but you can like you and it's and you can see how far away you are because you can't see anything and it's flat i'm still there's got to be radiation that can't be all of it it has to be this is this is scientific what's happening with these people there's always dust in your teeth there's atoms splitting and shit to make people this crazy right it has to be has to be so yeah he ends up being born here uh finally on february 13th 1967 in albuquerque and uh we'll talk about him he's not a very tall guy by the way as a boy he's a

boxer he's only five foot six so he's a he's a little guy you know you know lighter weight class he's not a heavyweight or anything like that but we're gonna have to skip over tons of boxing today we're not gonna be having a lot of time to talk about boxing i'll say he won this fight he lost this fight and if someone's got a funny nickname we'll talk about that for a minute but otherwise we have no time to talk about boxing because it's constant insanity with this fucking guy and it starts out early on here um his mother's name is virginia uh gall And, well, it's not good. So reportedly, allegedly, and we'll talk more about it, his father had been murdered before he was born. Then, at the age of seven, Jesus Christ, Johnny was riding on a bus that drove off a hundred foot cliff.

Normally, that would be the end. Thank you for tuning in to Crime and Sports, everybody. It's been, thank you. It's been a crazy episode. We've had a murder and a child die and that's enough for today. Thank you. But no. He survived it?

Apparently this hurled a pregnant woman seated next to him out the window over him and threw her to her death. So he watched a pregnant woman like launch over him out the window over him and threw her to her death so he watched a pregnant woman like launch over him out the window over him and die so and there's no seat belts in there so how the fuck did he stay in i don't know he was by the window he must have not been launched because he was already probably next to it he got yeah he got to brace he was just like like lobbed like that yeah she got like ball on a cup yeah, like out of a catapult. You know, I pictured her flying through the air. Seeing a silhouette of a pregnant woman flying through the air.

Terrible. Which is way worse than E.T. and a kid on a bicycle. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I'd rather see that than with her feet kicking. Whee! And her pregnant belly. That's not good.

Not good. I picture her, of course, like eight months pregnant, too. Like really, really round. It wasn't she was coming back from the appointment with confirming it no with a little sonogram picture showing it to little john hey johnny want to see no this is like she was rubbing her belly like yeah any day now i gotta pee all the time and then just shot right out the window fuck my back hurts yeah i mean we can only laugh because this happened in like uh what 1974 so yeah it's okay bad things she would have probably been dead anyway we don't know

so she was she was thrown to both of their death huh yeah everybody dead there uh tappy was thrown through a window but he escaped with a concussion so this is a guy who'll be a boxer later on and early on he gets a pretty nasty concussion at the age of seven so probably one of the yeah one of the worst ones you can get tossed out of a bus killed a pregnant woman so i mean yeah it's couldn't have been that good for anybody right had to be pretty hard so right away starting out with possible brain damage early on in a forming brain. So this is rough. Probably not the best guy to be punched in the head a lot later on. Likely got a lesion already.

Probably. Then when he's eight years old the next year, not a good time for him. Very next year. Next year, May 23rd, 1975, to be exact here. All right. Well, let's read from a newspaper from the time, okay? Virginia is his mother. Now, his mother's not a famous person, so if she's in the newspaper right away, that's not going to be good.

Right away you know something's wrong or something's bad. So May 23, 1975, quote, A warm Friday evening, Virginia and a girlfriend went out together to a honky-tonk on Central and Coors called the Cow Palace. Wow. I see a mistake one. Yeah. Mary Helen stayed home with the two young boys. Late in the evening, Virginia lent her car to her friend who was leaving the bar to follow home someone the pair had met.

Meanwhile, Virginia stayed at the Cow Palace waiting for her car to be returned. So she's like, will you finish sucking his dick so I can fucking get my car back? That's what it is. Hurry up. Yeah, it's the mid-70s, too. Who knows? Will you stop sucking him and his friend's dick? It was 75, so that's probably what it was there.

Take my car so that you don't have to rely on them to get you back. Exactly. You'll end up in the woods somewhere otherwise. But Virginia's friend got arrested for a dui instead so virginia had no ride home she just sat there waiting for her car so at some point you know late late late she just sits there the whole night she has no car she has no choice but to wait at some point in the early morning hours according to bernalillo County Sheriff's Department records, Virginia likely accepted a lift from the Cow Palace. But she never made it home. It gets worse.

Around 9 a.m. that morning, a Saturday, the owner of a gravel pit near Coors Road, about five miles south of the Cow Palace, discovered an incoherent young woman lying on her stomach in the rubble. When sheriff's department deputies arrived, they thought the woman, who was fully clothed before no identification, had been blasted repeatedly by a shotgun. Whoa!

The front and back of her thorn-covered white blouse were riddled with what appeared to be bullet holes. In shock, the woman was put into an ambulance and taken to Presbyterian Hospital. By the time she reached the hospital's intensive care

unit, she was unconscious. Placed on life support systems, she began to go downhill. A small news item appeared in the journal the next day. The story described the unknown woman in the clothes and the jewelry she wore. Esther and Mary Helen Tapia saw the article and wondered if the woman could be Virginia, who was missing. On Monday, they identified her.

Meanwhile, little Johnny said, where's my mom? He asked. Yeah, she's away for a few days. He was told she'll be back soon. Oh, but she didn't come back. Four days after being admitted to the hospital, she died at 32 years old. Sheriff's deputies located one of her

shoes and some blood-crusted stones at the opposite end of the gravel pit. She was left for dead with 33 stab wounds. With knives, screwdrivers, they said. All different implements. What the fuck?

She was stabbed that much and had crawled more than 500 yards for help never ask me why i hate albuquerque jesus christ yeah because every gravel pit has a stabbed woman in it that's why unbelievable albuquerque all our gravel pits have stabbed women in it come on down wow so what the shit man she remained a jane doe for two days until the story and a photo ran in the paper and her sister went to the hospital and confirmed it that's who it was so johnny's aunts and uncles went to visit his mother over the next few days but they wouldn't uh allow virginia's they wouldn't allow johnny and that's what the article says here johnny wanted to say goodbye to his mother but they they said no, so she died four days later.

You can't let an eight-year-old see that. No, that's fucking ridiculous. Terrible. Anyway, no one's ever charged with this murder. What? She went into unconsciousness, never came back, so she was never able to describe her assailant or anything like that. You'd think someone at the bar would have saw her leave with somebody or something, but no one had shit to say. An autopsy show showed that she hadn't been shot.

She'd been stabbed in the chest, arms, shoulders and back a total of 33 times with what medical examiners said appeared to be a pair of scissors with the blade closed. There's a lot of the wounds, too, and a screwdriver, they thought, for some of them also. with the blade closed, as a lot of the wounds do, and a screwdriver, they thought, for some of them also. Sheriff's deputies interrogated several people who were seen with Virginia that Friday night at the Cow Palace. One man had suspicious scratches on his arms and was later caught posing as Virginia's brother in an attempt to gain entrance to the ICU.

That's the guy you want to talk to, I think. Yep. A lot. That sounds like him. Two other men had lengthy police records dating back to the 1950s but no arrests were made in the time the leads grew cold and the case was closed and that was that so oh my oh she was also raped as well of course so that's why you do that and i'd love i'd love to know uh if the cops have ever followed up on searching whether or not that man with the scratches ever did anything else ever again.

Because if he did, he's probably your guy. Yeah, that's you know, there's probably a good might be a scratch guy. I'm sure he doesn't stop there. Yeah. And what do you do for a living? Like cut like thorn bushes? If not, I want to talk to you. And she was in a place where there was brambles and bushes and stuff yeah you know it makes a lot of sense the whole thing so

now johnny says here's a thing here johnny says later on that this is only from johnny's memory we don't know that that that he recalled being awakened in the middle of the night by a noise that he thought was his mother screaming. This is nowhere near his house, by the way, this happened. He said he looked out the window and saw her chained in the back of a pickup truck. He said he woke up his grandparents and told him that he heard his mother screaming and saw her chained in the back of a pickup truck out the window, but they thought that you're an eight-year-old boy

and you're probably having a dream and said they sent him back to bed. You know what I mean? Who knows? We don't know. The odds of her screaming in enough time for him to get out of bed and walk to a window and look out and then have to go across

and just happen to drive by their house on the way to the murder seems Seems far-fetched. Or maybe he's heard something and they subliminally get that. And you make a dream up and it feels real. Also, he's already had a severe concussion. So we don't know what he's imagining and what's going on in his brain. So at this point, we're hurting here. So now he's got no parents.

And he's grasping for answers, too, because this has got to be baffling. It's terrifying, I would think. So he's got his grandparents now, Miguel and Esther. They're going to take care of him and his brother Oliver as well. So he's raised by his grandparents. He lives with them and 15 uncles and cousins. Oh, yeah, that's healthy. He slept.

Okay, we've had a lot of bad situations what i mean as a childhood to have your mom tormented and tortured to death basically and have your dad never you never met him because he's allegedly murdered already right flown out a fucking bus window with a pregnant woman exploding in front of you and yeah all of these different things this is already now you're gonna live with 18 other people yeah this is all before you even get to grandma's house this is already one of the toughest childhoods we've ever encountered we've dealt with people who had dirt floors and no plumbing and things like that he's living with 18 people so there isn't really

a room in the house so he just sleeps on the front porch oh my god that's where he sleeps on the porch in albuquerque in albuquerque so he has no parents and is essentially he has a home to go inside to but not at night he's gonna sleep he's got a real good like homeless people would be jealous he's got a real good spot staked out that no one else can get but he's still essentially homeless though there's a roofed up shitter in there yeah uh that apart from that he's still essentially homeless, though. There's a roofed-up shitter in there. Yeah. Apart from that, he's the same. Yeah, and he can just be like a child. He can just be taken off the porch at any time by anybody, which is also odd. In the middle of the night.

Yeah. So when he's an early young teenager, pre-teen and teen here, he tries to channel channel his rage he says later on he's very upset which hey this guy as far as kids go if anyone has a right to be a little pissy i think it's certainly entitled he's got some problems i think he needs someone to sit down to him have some conversations with him yeah i don't know how that's being dealt with but he deals with it by joining a gang hell yeah which yeah i mean that makes sense here the wells wells park locos as the gang joins so he had some some you know minor incidents with the law and things like that you know kid shit here and uh his grandfather though said no no no absolutely not you're not gonna fuck up for you no locos no mas locos, young man. Not happening.

So they said that Virginia had been his grandfather's favorite daughter. So he said that he didn't want his grandson to end up like his grandmother. And he said, quote, if you hang around with bad people, you could get stabbed, Johnny. That's what he said. Very specific fear. Just stabbed. You could get stabbed like your mom or tons of other things. Or maybe your father because we don't know how he's murdered.

He may have been stabbed too. No shit. So but he was such a tough little shit that his grandfather and uncles rather than saying, hey, if you hang around with bad people, you're going to get stabbed. They said, well, we'll be the bad people you hang around with. So they started taking him to bars as a child, not to drink and hang out or anything, which would actually be preferable to what they're having him do. Instead, they're having him fight all comers, and then they bet on it. That's how they make money.

They bet on it and take bets. Can you beat my grandson up? They have grown men fighting him. How badass is he? it that's how they make money they bet on it and take bets can you beat my grandson up they have grown men fighting him how badass is he this is like the harley race is harley race and fritz von eric had these two had this upbringing this is the same thing except i believe they slept indoors is the only difference they had their parents weren't murdered so yeah a little different but yeah this is crazy they and they're making him do it, is he big or is he like he's five, six fully grown. That's why they should make a lot of money on him because he's so fucking tough. And some grown man who just got off his job is like a road crew worker thinks he can kick the shit out of him, takes his orange vest off and is going to scrap with a fucking 13 year old. And the kid beats the shit out of him, the grandparents make a ton of money. Wow.

So that's how they did it. Yeah. They said it was, this was when he was 10. They were doing this. 10. Small child, but he's beating up grown men. Wow. There's a, when you feel like you have nothing to lose,

there's a, you know. It can always get worse. If a very ugly man wants to fight you don't do it what are you gonna do don't do it he doesn't care about his face at all you worry about it so oh boy this is wild man and obviously he's you know he's uh a good fighter and he likes to impress his grand after a while he likes to impress his grandfather and he likes to impress his uncles and he likes to impress these people um and also if he won the fight they'd give him a dollar a buck a buck which is nice to have um if he lost then they'd beat him

up then the dad they'd smack him around oh my god you pussy it didn't make us any money he said though it actually made him a better fighter though obviously he said quote pretty soon i'm not losing anymore it wasn't worth losing okay this is crazy this is can you get beat up or i can get a dollar or i can get a dollar that's it so he said that his older and bigger relatives slapped him around all the time when he was young so he could take a good beating he's like okay so he became an amateur fighter when he was about 12 and he was only 56 pounds so he put what he put rocks in his pockets to make the 70 pound minimum literally rocks in your pocket yeah so two years after he was fighting people in bars he was 56 pounds so he's like 48 pounds fighting grown men in bars and winning or else

getting a beating from their his grandfathers this is unbelievable this is fucking bonkers he had he's got more concussions now because he's doing bare bare knuckle fighting with adults he's not in a ring with a right with a you know referee looking in his eyes if he gets hit hard that's none of that's outside of a bar at probably 45 to 50 pounds in albuquerque which makes it somewhat worse i feel like anyway there are hardy heavy people there yeah there's some big lots of big people some hardy people some people that work outdoors in the heat there's some hardy people so then he continued he goes to albuquerque high school and continues his amateur boxing career. He does very well. We're not going to talk about individual fights from his amateur career.

I'll give you an overview here. But he won the 1983 New Mexico State Golden Gloves. That's when he's 16. The 83 and 85 National Golden Gloves Tournament at Light Flyweight and Flyweight, 83 and 85, respectively. So he's a bad motherfucker nationally yeah he's a badass i mean from what i look at his amateur record i see his losses are all points any losses he has are points here there's an article in the albuquerque tribune from 83 headline young tapia stands alone i guess i guess he. He's 106 pounds at this point.

And he said that, I guess, the team that he was fighting on, he won but other people lost. And he said, I'm happy inside, but I wanted our other guys to win too. I didn't want to be the only guy celebrating a fucking win. 100 pounds. Yeah. You can't go into like a locker room going, yeah, fuck yeah, while everybody else lost that

really that's not fun anymore so no good there but they're talking about what a great fighter he is they said that you know he seems to be they call him the baby-faced assassin at this point and he said i wanted a knockout my trainer kept telling me to work harder and harder in every round he said i should be ranked after this i should be the number two ranked guy by Friday. I want to fight for the USA team. So he's trying to do that. Yeah, I see a couple of losses on points here. Then he talked about, should he be a pro fighter, though?

He's looking at that. He's like, I don't know. He said, quote, most of the time I think I should wait a few years. He said, I'll be bigger and stronger if I do that. He said, but then sometimes I think I should go sooner. I don't want to wait too long until it's too late. I don't want to be an old maid. Yeah, I don't want to be an old maid at 17.

I don't want to miss my prime when I'm 16 and a half. I'd like to start while I still know my name. Yeah. And then I'll forget it over the course of my career. So they said that he's going to remain an amateur for now but yeah 106 he wants to go uh they're talking about him going to 112 here so that would be the big thing be all the way all the way up to 112 his amateur record is 24 and 8 and everything i see is all on points, and one is a DQ.

He's disqualified for hitting after the referee said to stop hitting. So they disqualified him. Yeah, so that's how that goes. And he decides to go pro March 25, 1987. He's going to go pro. Now he's 20 years old, and he's going to be managed by Albuquerque's Joe Maloof. That's not one of the Maloof brothers, is it? It's got to be, right?

I don't know. And trained by Beto Martinez of Phoenix. I've heard of him, too. Really? Yep. He planned to fly to Phoenix to start his training, and he's going to do his shit. And he said, it's been a dream of mine to be a pro fighter and win a title belt since I was a little kid.

Ever since I was winning fucking real belts from grown men in bars. That's what I would do. I'd beat them up and then strip their belt off of them and say, I won this now. Ever since I didn't have parents and my grandpa beat me up. That's when I wanted this. I've wanted this. So he, 1988, he starts getting into drugs pretty hard right away. Really?

Pretty much as soon as he makes a dime. He's going to get into drugs here. Yeah. way really pretty much as soon as he makes a dime he's gonna get into drugs here yeah he's 21 year old 21 years old and um he's doing coke he's in phoenix doing phoenix doing coke and he said quote the first time was a mistake but the second time was a habit you know he loves cocaine or at one point really loved it because listen to this he calls cocaine she at one point really loved it? Because listen to this. He calls cocaine she. Yeah. When a guy calls coke she, wow, did he have a fucking thing with it.

Oh, he's done a lot. That's a love affair. And did he shame on coke shame on me the first and second time he tried it? The first time was a mistake, but the second time was a habit. First time shame on me. Second time, shame on Coke for being so good. Then he said, quote, she got me where she wanted me, and she gave me everything. This is how people talk about a ship. The Titanic was a she, not cocaine.

Or some girl you didn't want to fuck that night, but you did it anyway. That's fucking amazing. Because she got me where I wanted. I got to read the whole thing from the beginning here to start. Okay. The first time was a mistake, but the second time was a habit. She got me where she wanted me, and she gave me everything. Cocaine became my mistress.

Cocaine. With a dash in it there. Cocaine became my mistress. This sounds like song lyrics here. It does, it does he's writing a goddamn song so his first fight probably coked up march 28th 88 he fights a guy named efren chavez who's six and one coming into this fight and this fight is a draw really a fucking draw too much coke we never yeah how often do we hear that in a guy's first fight? Not even a decision of any kind, a draw. So they both fought, threw the same amount of punches, stood there looking at judges,

and they were like, I don't know. Seemed the same to me, right? Draw. Head on home, boys. Neither, go try harder next time. Bye. Never mind. That would be so depressing. Yeah, it would.

That's worse than losing. Yeah. A draw, a fucking draw. Rather they just give it to him. Christ's sake, that would piss me off. than losing. Yeah. A draw. A fucking draw. Rather than just give it to him. Christ's sake, that would piss me off. I want to fight him again now. We fought all the time we could fight. Yeah.

And judges looked at each other like, I don't know. You know? I don't know. You can't feel happy. You can't feel ripped off. You can't feel anything. You just feel like they did nothing to you. Nothing.

What was the point of this? Yeah. This was stupid. God damn it. Should have stayed home. So the next month, April 11th, 88, he fights James Dean back from the point of this? Yeah, this was stupid. God damn it. Should have stayed home. So the next month, April 11th, 88, he fights James Dean back from the dead. Really? Yeah. He's 7-0 coming in.

Of course he'll kick that guy's ass. That's what happens. Him and Paul Walker. Got them both. So, uh, this is a unanimous decision win. So he's 1-0 and 1. Next up, he wins another fight against a terrible guy with a 1-9 career record. Knocks him out there. So he's 2-0.

He's going fighting every month, though, in 88 here. Martin Perez Ramirez, he beats up this guy in fucking first round. So it's coming fast and furious. July 13, 1988, though. He's got a thumb injury here, apparently. He's got a fractured thumb. So you'd say, of course, he's a boxer. He's going to get a fractured thumb.

No, you think he got it in the ring? Get the fuck out of here. No, not Johnny Tappy's wild style life. He's not doing that. Well, he suffered a broken thumb in a scuffle with an alleged trespasser in his backyard and was forced to cancel his first appearance in las vegas oh no jesus is he staying in in albuquerque i think so i think he's in phoenix because that's where he trains because his trainers in phoenix taylor swift is soaring

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I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me. Leave her alone. Okay, so, um...

This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother. That's not him. Yes, ma'am.

I would make a beeline for the door the emmy award-winning series returns how did i know that i have crystal ball in my head it's an all-new season it's streaming you can say anything judy justice only on freebie uh his manager said that tapia confronted a man in his backyard two days after someone had broken into his home and in the altercation he had suffered a crack bone in his left thumb he probably beat the shit out of that guy yeah think about how badly he you would get pummeled if you were a regular person who's not a yeah fighter and you just got in this guy's backyard and weren't expecting to be in mortal combat

with a guy who's been fighting for his life since he was nine in a bar. If a professional boxer after the fight with you, bare knuckle, breaks something in his hand, you look real bad. You're gonna hurt for

months. You are messed up. Forever. So forever finally gets to fight in vegas on september 16th and he wins a first round knockout against miguel martinez so that's nice for some reason they have another they have a ream oh this is a different oh this is manual martinez okay he fights miguel martinez knocks him out quickly then fights manual martinez yeah who's a 1 and 11 career fighter knocks him out in the first round as well he's like i will take all the martinez boys any other brothers fucking manual and miguel i'm gonna knock your mom up and make another and then beat the

shit out of that one bring him on yeah i'll launch your pregnant mom out of a bus window don't fucking tempt me motherfucker so he So he fights Jorge Salinas in October of 88, who is an 0-1 fighter who ends up his career 0-2, so that didn't last long. All of these are first round knockouts here. Finally, December 1st, 88, he fights Simon Contreras.

His nickname is Kid Mello. He's 4-5. You don't get a nickname when you're 4-5. No no no nicknames unless it's mediocre mediocre marvin maybe or something like that but they have nailed it he is very mellow very mellow and he stays mellow his career because after the coming into this fight at four and five he never wins a fight again and he's four and fourteen for his career mellow is mellow a little too mellow man you might want to pick it up a pace

he's just like hey man chill he's like fucking tommy chong and up in smoke hey man like what the fuck i didn't look at his face man i wasn't looking at his neck man sorry we were watching that before we were recording such a dying laughing god damn it oh man we love it that's the best so uh he's kid mellow here sucks but he goes all the the just eight rounds so really they go the distance and it's fucking unanimous decision and there you go so he next up fights little little abner barajas is his name. Okay. Lil Abner. 0-3 coming in, so you know how this is going to go. It's a second-round knockout for Johnny here.

He's 8-0-1. Lil Abner if he was Espanola. Yep, Lil Abner Espanola over here. Unreal. Perfect. So March 23, 1989, he fights Fred Hernandez, who if anyone's ever needed a nickname, it's Fred Hernandez. There's a lot of you, sir. It's just a lot of that.

Which one? He gets one. He is Fred Pantera Hernandez. Okay. Yeah. There you go. So he's a 7-1 fighter coming in, but he ends up 13-15, so this doesn't go very well. Tapia is behind on points, apparently apparently but with three seconds remaining he knocks he

knocks uh hernandez out cold but he's saved by the bell because it's the last round oh so he's out there they're fucking reviving him yeah after as the fight's over with but the knockdown completely switched that round yeah switch that round because it was a close fight and Tappy ends up winning it. And he wins. Wow. He wins at 9-0-1 he is now. May 20th 1989. This has never happened before. He's fought 10 fights. He is banned in California for having brain damage.

Really? Already. Already banned in California. In what year is this? 1989. They always did CAT scans on fighters. you have to get cat scans before you fight to show that you're not fucking so his brain damage is already is is medically diagnosed it's not just like he looks a different way and he's fought like 25 rounds he has barely fought it's he's but he's been hitting the head a lot in his life so so much problems uh this is an article

here and it says, by Rick Wright, and it says, Albuquerque professional boxer Johnny Tappy has been suspended indefinitely in California after failing a controversial neurological test. It was a controversy whether to let guys with brain damage box back then. Literally. People were like, well, that's up to them. It's their decision.

The test evidently is questionable. Is that what they're saying? I don't know. We'll go to the next paragraph. But a CAT scan administered in Albuquerque on Thursday apparently revealed no abnormalities in the undefeated 22-year-old. And Tapia plans to keep fighting. So the chairman of the New Mexico Athletic Commission, the vaunted New Mexico Athletic Commission, which sits high atop the mountain.

Yeah. All those big money fights that happen in New Mexico all the time, they wouldn't be doing anything just to get a big fight in their town with a local guy or anything, right? No. Well, they do them in Las Vegas, New Mexico, so that nobody knows the difference, James. So you can't tell. Same shit. The California neurological exam is administered only in that state where it has disqualified a number of boxers and prompted lawsuits for reinstatement.

In most states, the CAT scan is considered the most valuable tool in determining a fighter's neurological fitness. In this case, they said that, oh, they're talking to the initials cat, and they're talking about what a CAT scan is. So whatever. He says, quote, no, I know I'm okay. That's what he says. I know I'm okay.

He says, they say in California that I have brain damage, but that couldn't be. Anybody who's seen me fight knows I don't get hit that much. Okay, that's fine. You don't get it. You don't get how brains work, I don't get hit that much okay that's fine get it you don't get what brain how brains work i don't think here but clearly not a neurosurgeon no but his manager said listen this is bullshit the new mexico state thing cleared him he's totally good and uh quote he said this is from his manager he said the doctor told me quote everything is fine yep he said dr chester told me i could could start Johnny sparring again today if I wanted to.

Totally good. Don't worry about it. But I'm going to give him a day off because I'm a good guy. Let him go out tonight, have a good time. He said, there are a lot of questions about that exam they give in California. That crazy exam there. They, a CAT scan and the California test, measure different things, is what this guy says. Our test tries to determine the degree of risk a boxer may have for an acute injury.

In Tapia's case, chronic brain impairment was found. The exam is essentially the same one that prompted the forced retirement in California two years ago of Albuquerque junior lightweight Tommy Cordova. They test your balance and your reflexes because that's part of it. You can't see everything in your brain. That's the point. They don't test whether or not he can spell his name. They test whether or not he can defend himself. And you're going to say he's okay.

He failed defending himself. They test everything. It's a reflex test. It's to see if your brain is fucking working on all cylinders. Capable of defending yourself. Yeah. Not just we saw a picture of it.'s to see if your brain is fucking working on all cylinders. Capable of defending yourself. Yeah, not just we saw a picture of it. Don't see any giant spots, so get on in there until you do. He said, they ask you how many animals you can name in a minute.

There was a written test. I had to color in some blocks, and they showed me a picture for two seconds and asked me how much I remembered. Stuff like that. I thought I did fine. That's why they're not going to let you box, because you thought you did fine, and you didn't. That's the point. What do you want to bet I failed that test?

Oh, yeah, probably. That sounds fucking difficult. I could do it until about 11 o'clock at night, and then probably after that I wouldn't, because I'm very stoned after that. How long do you get? One minute to name the animals? It's, what did he say here say here uh no there was a written test i had to color in some blocks they showed me a picture for two seconds and asked me how much i remembered that's what it

was so yeah i don't know whatever this is that's that's what they do for cognitive tests to make sure they do that for dementia they do it for a lot of things flash and see what your eyes see and get back to your brain and then recall it that's a pretty great test of whether or not you're fucking capable and there's logic things that go into the box there's all sorts of different i'm not a neuro we're not no hey guys everybody i know that you might have thought so neither of us are neurologists in case you got the mistaken idea that we were i don't want to anybody to think our credentials are more than they are which are two fucking idiots speak for yourself you see this gold framed plaque i got so anyway that's what they're saying they said that uh he flew back

i guess he was he flew back to los ang for a more comprehensive test. He took the test three times. That's the other thing. No, no, let me go one more. Well, the first he did fine before his first pro fight 14 months ago. He did okay. Took the exam again before the fight with Freddy Hernandez. And four days, took the before his fight. And then four days after the fight, the commission advised him that he failed. So he took the test before the fight, but they didn't tell him then four days after the fight the commission advised him that he failed

so they he took the fight the test before the fight but they didn't tell him he failed till after the fight oh shit which is interesting so on april 26th it said chavez and tapia flew back to los angeles for a more comprehensive test and he failed again oh boy so that's not great so oh they're yeah they said that uh tapia's worries were hardly assuaged by what they do now, the electroencephalogram, that thing. One of those tests. CTE test. Yeah, done in Albuquerque.

It's also showed no abnormalities. An EEG is a graph representing a person's brain waves, but Tapia said doctors told him the EEG might have reflected only scar tissue from a concussion suffered in a childhood bus accident. They said the CAT scans resulted had satisfied him that Tapia was unimpaired, and they said, there you go. It's fucking, so they're going to press for reinstatement in California. He is cleared to fight in Albuquerque, though, so he's going to fight in Albuquerque. So New Mexico set themselves up to get some money into their economy is what they did. That's what it is. So yeah, he said it was, he hated it. He said that fucking,

this is the worst thing that I've ever had to go through in boxing being suspended in California. Yeah. Having to stay in New Mexico for any amount of time. It's the worst thing I've ever had to do in boxing. Uh, he said, I've come along. I really have amount of time. It's the worst thing I've ever had to do in boxing. He said, I've come along. I really have a chance to do something as a fighter. I've come a long way. But this thing could have put me right back where I started. Sure.

Yeah, he's crazy, man. He doesn't like it at all. He said, I knew there was nothing wrong with me. And this proves it, the Albuquerque test that he took. He said he spent at least $1, 1500 of his own money on medical exams and related expenses in an effort to confirm or refute the findings and his manager said if there were anything wrong with johnny i'd be the first one not to want him to fight yeah right now i'm pleased happy elated any words you want to use he said if it means yeah they said will he be uh are you do

you think he'll be ever be reinstated in california and he says if it means, yeah, they said, will he be, do you think he'll ever be reinstated in California? And he says, if it means paying for more tests, I will. I'll even, I'll pay for whatever. I'm getting him back in there. So he beats this next guy, some tomato can named Josefino Suarez. So when's that? Josefino. Oh, Josefino.

Yeah. I think we're going to name him after his grandmother. Josefino. There you go. That's that. So that is a going to name him after his grandmother. Josephino. There you go. That's that. So that is a unanimous decision there in eight rounds. So he's getting pounded a little bit here. So he gets hit sometimes.

He goes the distance sometimes. He's got to get hit at some point. He's only putting credence towards the bus accident of- Yeah, that too. Had damage. But he's not accounting for all the other shit that's happened in his life, like fighting grown men. Slapped around by his uncles and grandfathers, all these things. He probably got brain damage from several different things.

From several different points of origin. We got a lot of brain damage going on here. So August 19th, 1989, here he fights hugo parita who's won 10 and 1 coming in not a good fighter here yeah and he beats him in the second round knocks him out so there you go 11 0 and 1 next up he fights john michael bam bam johnson there's already a bam bam bigelow at the time, but this guy ends up 31-11 for his career. So not terrible here, but this is a unanimous decision. It's at the State Fair in Phoenix.

So if you were 11 and at the State Fair, you may have seen this fight, Jimmy. You may have seen this man fight at the fucking Coliseum. Yeah, while you were eating that fry bread shit. That's what you were doing. Shit is so good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Nothing against the fry bread.

That's not what we're talking about so that's good stuff that would make this tolerable i've never seen boxing at the state fair uh in phoenix i don't know that i don't know they do it anymore that's a great fucking place to do it it makes sense i'd love to think about it yeah well yeah it would it would make sense there yeah because you have the arena there. You have all the shits right there. So why not? It's a piece of shit.

Run some shitty fights. Yeah, who cares? Fuck it. This isn't a huge fight. He's fighting a guy named Bam Bam, for Christ's sake. Next up, he fights Prudencio de Jesus. Oh. Prudencio.

That's quite the name. Prudencio de Jesus. He's 0-1 coming in. 0-3 for his his career so you know this doesn't go well civic plaza in phoenix this is fighting a lot of phoenix fights now this is a tko in the first round so there you go next up martin perez ramirez he's fighting every month by the way pretty much yeah within a month every time uh this guy he knocked or no it's an eight round decision he's going the distance again there this, this is at the Hacienda Hotel in Las Vegas.

Not one of the bigger ones, if you don't know. I'm pretty sure it's gone. Next up, he fights Jesus Chong, otherwise known as El Tigre. Yeah. Better than Chong. Yeah. Jesus Chong. That's if Cheech and Chong had a baby together.

It would be Jesus Chong, they'd name it, right? Am I wrong? His daughter was Ray Dawn, right? Yeah. Ray Dawn Chong. It's pretty close to. Yeah. That rhymes, I guess.

It was Ray Dawn, two separate names. Right, right, right. Yeah. It made it sound like Ray Dawn Chong, which made her sound like she was very Asian. And then you'd see her and go, what the fuck? What's happening? You're like, maybe you're mixed of something, but you're definitely not. Asian ain't part of it. I know that

much. It doesn't seem to be anyway. So this guy is a 32 and 16 career fighter. He'll go on to be, but this goes all eight rounds and Johnny wins again. So 15-0 and 1 he is. Next up, he's fighting a 2 and 13 fighter. Knock knocks him out in the first round

at the Civic Plaza in Phoenix next up Roland Gomez his nickname is Johnny Johnny Gomez why go by Roland Johnny Gomez just go by Johnny Gomez then you fucking idiot what are you doing

that's a name that's not a nickname it's a regular name you can't be a nickname of a regular name that's your name now stupid fucking dummy that doesn't work like that i want to be johnny what because i've heard that before is a nickname for people i don't get it i don't know i mean john tappy is johnny but his name is john he makes sense this guy's name's fucking roland this doesn't make any sense i don't get johnny whatsoever uh this uh mills lane is a referee for this one is that right absolutely this is in lake tahoe This guy's name is fucking Roland. This doesn't make any sense. Don't get Johnny. Whatsoever. This, oh, Mills Lane is a referee for this one.

Is that right? Absolutely. This is in Lake Tahoe. TKO in the 11th round. This wins Johnny the IBF-USBA super flyweight title. Kid's a champion. He's a champion, yeah. Johnny Gomez here was 21-3 coming in, so he beat a good fighter. Next up, he fights Pablo Venezuela.

His nickname is Mulatto. I don't like that at all. That's his nickname. Maybe, I don't know what he is. He can call himself whatever he wants if he is. I don't know. But that was also 1990. He could have nicknamed himself that a long time ago.

I don't know. And also in Spanish, maybe it's different. It might be something else. I don't know. And also in Spanish, maybe it's different. It might be something else. I don't know. Yeah, it might have a different connotation in Spanish here. It might be something beautiful. Yeah, it could be a beautiful sunset. We have no idea.

So 19-1 he is coming in, the old Pablo here. So Pablo loses, though, in the fifth round. And this is in Phoenix at the at the la mancha athletic club the fuck is that uh that's a boxing gym that i think no longer exists yeah they had like enough room for an audience for a professional fight a title fight phoenix yeah this is a title fight holy shit wow that's crazy yeah this is a goddamn actual title fight. There's a belt involved here. So next up, this is July of 1990. He's still fighting every month. Wow.

Like just stacking them. Jose Felix Montiel, a.k.a. Josecito. Josecito, sorry. Uh-huh. Or Josecito. I don't know. Probably Josecito. He is 33-3 coming in, and it's a ninth-round knockout for Johnny Tapia here.

So he keeps his belt. Next up, Luigi Campuntaro. Oh, fucking Luigi. His nickname? Kid Dynamite the Godfather. Kid Dynamite's Mike Tyson, so you can't have that. Yeah, you can't do that. And the Dynamite kid's already out there.

And the Godfather already exists. It's Mike Tyson, so you can't have that. Yeah, you can't do that. And the Dynamite Kid's already out there. And The Godfather already exists. It's a movie. If you want to be The Godfather, if that's your nickname, fine, great. Then be Luigi The Godfather Camputaro, and then don't come to me when people fucking call you a stereotype and make fun of you, you fucking idiot, you guido asshole. I'm The Godfather, Luigi. Oh, come over here for a minute.

Hey, what are you starting come on fight me i'm just you could i could beat you you know i got a little bit of brain damage but you know he's gotta be from new york right beats the shit out of me where luigi computaro is there's italians everywhere he could be from fucking italy for all i know but by this time tyson's very famous and uh and so is the god. So what are you doing? Well, I mean, The Godfather would be naming yourself after the movie, because people do that. They name themselves after movie characters. But Kid Dynamite would be, you're not Mike Tyson, stupid.

You weigh like 130 pounds, tops. Luigi Rambo. So Luigi's 22 and 4 coming into this fight, though. He's a tough guinea here but he's obviously he seems like probably one of the dumb just you know i don't know i'm just they put me out here you know i just take a lot of punches in the face and i get them back if i want you know what i mean yeah the godfather that's me so godfather rocky i'm the godfather rocky and um i'm also uh i'm also what was the fucking god damn it uh i'm also the waco kid

i'm gene wilder and blazing saddles uh you know got a couple other things i am but you know it's we'll talk about it they call me sundance sometimes you know what i mean call me the bandit if you want if it feels better call me call me Smokey. I don't mind Smokey. You could call me Smokey. They call me Forrest Gump once in a while. I've been called Rudy a couple of times. So, you know, I really take whatever you want as far as movie references go. One guy just called me Corey Feldman from the Goonies. I was like, all right, that's a fine one.

Cool. You know, it's like, good deal. You know what I mean? Jesus Christ. But this goes all 12 rounds. Unanimous decision for Mr. Tapia here. He's super flyweight. October 24th, 1990.

His fiance here. There's an article in the Albuquerque Journal. And I'll just read the article. Quote, Tapia's fiance, Annette Holler, knows the anger. Quote, Johnny scares me sometimes. Jesus Christ, that's not good. Says Holler, a tall, pretty manicurist who looks strikingly like Virginia Gallegos, like his mother. What the fuck?

Oh, no, Johnny. Johnny needs therapy. Bad. Sure does. Listen, listen, I'm not trying to be all whatever, but. Johnny needs therapy. Bad. Sure does. Listen, listen. I'm not trying to be all whatever, but if someone needs therapy, it's a guy who, A, saw his fucking pregnant woman launch out the window and die in front of his eyes, and then had his mother fucking murdered, and he thinks he saw her chained up in a truck, and then was put in a bar to fight grown men for money.

He needs a little bit of help, I think. A talk. money he needs a little bit of help i think some talk then parlayed all of that trauma into a very successful boxing career where he keeps the trauma happening if he needs every head doctor yeah all the doctors that work on brains should be seeing him yep and he fights every month because it feels like he needs activity and he's on coke so yeah so uh johnny said heck yes heck yes johnny says yes annette and me fight she scratched me and i've hit her but we've always come back together this isn't the newspaper he said this man just admitted to cry he just in the albuquerque journal she scratched me and i've hit her but we always end up together you just said we have a horribly toxic

abusive relationship where we physically assault each other on a regular basis but it's all good because we get back together at the end we're both from terrible backgrounds is what he just said so it's fine started that statement with heck yes you may as well said gee golly i beat my golly gee i smacked my fiancee around i gave her the back of my hand cons concern it better believe but she hits me back so you know self defense my god then annette responds to that with johnny tells me i remind him of his mother he even knows it he even fucking knows it it's not even like it's subconscious he says i wish you could have met her i think his mother looks over him like an angel she's not doing a very good job of it if she is because he's

in a whole bunch of fucking bad situations coming up here. Next up, Santiago Caballero he fights. This is a 34-8 fighter. The fight is stopped in the seventh round due to an accidental thumb in Tapia's eye. I think it's a no decision at that point.

It's a win. They call it a win for him for some reason. Tapia gets the win. He's 21 no decision at that point. Or it's a win. They call it a win for him for some reason. Yeah, Tapia gets the win. He's 21-0. November 1990. Here we go here. This is from the Daily Press newspaper. Super Flyweight Champion Johnny Tapia tested positive for cocaine nearly three weeks after his title fight, but was not tested as required immediately after the bout.

fight but was not tested as required immediately after the bout so the ibf has asked the three member new mexico athletic commission for a report on the circumstances following the fight against santiago caballero they said it's unlikely he'll be stripped of his title because the test was taken more than two weeks after the fight so that wasn't like he was on coke during the fight which would be what they're worried about for sure but right now we're saying i'm sure he was but they don't have any proof of it they only have proof of two weeks later so december 5th 1990 they said that uh the commission will not sanction tapia here uh he said that he so he's fine they're not gonna for the coke yeah they're not gonna fucking suspend him or anything he won't be penalized it It's fine. He's all good. To do it again.

He said, I'm just glad this whole thing is over. Now that everything's said and done, I can go out and get my world title like I wanted to. So get this all over with. He said, I've got my head on straight. I just want to forget about all this. It was a big mistake, but it's over now. He's all good. He's good now.

No more. A month ago, he was in the newspaper going i hit my fiancee yeah yeah and that was fine no one yeah no one batted an eye at that there wasn't even like after that the reporter jumped in and said this is a disturbingly you know jesus that somebody would or even this is a stupid thing to admit in public nothing crazy that he said this out loud they just went on to the dialogue of his fiancee going he said he reminds me of i remind him of his mother she's an angel what the fuck is happening oh my god he has a cold that's going to delay his bout now in january 1991 that's a drippy nose it's got a bad cold yeah it's super bad i got a bad

taste in my throat you know what i mean it just keeps dripping his manager said he's got a bad taste in my throat. You know what I mean? It just keeps dripping. His manager said, he's got a cold. That's the end of it, period. He hasn't been able to train properly because of it. His throat is sore and he's got a fever. We're keeping him in bed right now. He's got the fever. He's got the fever.

And so he said that he's gotten his head on straight and this is crazy. So that's fucking wild. Souary oh by the way right under that there's an article in the uh there's like wanted ads near this in the sports page and this one says quote wanted elderly woman for cleaning and light cooking in the home why elderly why do they have to be elderly somebody saw mrs doubtfire i just like to watch old ladies cook. Some guy jerking it. Yeah, come on. Bake those cookies. Yeah, put pecans.

Yeah, there we go. Yeah, sprinkle those chocolate chips in. Yeah, finger that pie. That's what I'm talking about. It's the exact same ad that was in Mrs. Doubtfire. Pretty much, yeah. Except elderly, I don't think, was in the title. Yeah, I don't think elderly was.

Yeah, but light cooking and cleaning was, right? Yeah, light cooking, cleaning, kid watching. This is just cooking and cleaning. No kids involved here. So Albuquerque Journal here in January. Is it January? Yes, January. I don't know if it was July or January.

It's like July-annuary. Could be June. July-annuary. 1991 here in the Albuquerque Journal. He says he's healthy, dedicated, and ready to fight. Oh. Yes, and he's going to dedicate his next fight to the U.S. troops that are in the Middle East right now. Okay.

In the first Iraq war. Money to them or just the memory of them? No, no, no, just the memory of it. He said, you know what? Yeah, he insists that for him at least it's more than a PR ploy. Yeah, that's right. He said, quote, it's war. That's what he said.

He goes, it's not funny, but people still make jokes about it. And I know how that feels. Is it not funny? That war was funny. We lost like three people. And not even by like, like you know any sort of right enemy intervention like one guy got too drunk and fell off the top of a tank i think and broke his neck and like no that's literally lost in the people got sick too and stuff like that but at

the time it was like oh look at this we're rolling in and there's not even anybody to to fight us about it so people were making jokes about it there was a lot of jokes about it yeah yeah it turned out, not so great. But anyway, he said, though, that, you know, this is what he's doing. He said the guy said that he was fighting, called it a PR ploy. He's like, it's not. It's not, damn it. And then he also said that, quote, I've got a lot to prove, and I'm going to prove that I'm no quitter.

Okay? Because they're making fun of him for not doing this fight because he had a cold yeah i'm not a quitter i just pander i'll just definitely pander but i mean if it's genuine then great but yeah there's they're keep talking about a cold though and they're all all the newspaper it says uh originally scheduled to fight in las vegas tonight tapia dropped out saying he had a bad cold you could see eyes rolling and hear tongues wagging all over the town. A cold, right? Is that what they're calling it these days?

This is in the newspaper article. Well, Tapia not only had a cold, he developed bronchitis. He visited the newsroom on January 2nd, dark circles under his eyes, and a doctor's report in his hand. But that hasn't stopped the talk. Dark circles like a guy that does coke and has been up for three days. Yeah, he's been up for a month with his nose running. Dark circles and a runny nose.

He's got to be seriously ill. Yeah. And the New Mexico executive secretary of the Nevada Athletic Commission, hair silver as a motherfucker here, Chuck Minker, he said the sad part is the kid can be lying in bed with a temperature of 103 and everybody's thinking it's something else now you have to give him a chance what's wrong with you people jesus christ uh he said quote people oh this is tapia quote people talk behind your back you think you've got friends and they turn out to be the worst ones that's right um so yeah uh they

said we've been spot test of the guy he's fighting also had tested positive for cocaine a little while ago too oh so this all this is a they're gonna fight over a great fight gonna fight over three kilos is the purse here he's gonna win um yeah that's fucking amazing so that's how you can get a great fight out of these two oh that's gonna be active anyway yeah a lot of punching a lot of punching winner gets the most so march of 1991 the fight is scrapped again here he's still plagued by bronchitis and a viral gastrointestinal illness dude that is that's what is wrong with this guy i don't know what the fuck is wrong with him they said johnny's just hasn't been able to shake this thing and there's no way he's fighting until he's a hundred percent the doctor says he needs to get completely

well before he's training again that's what his trainer says so he says Johnny feels terrible about this but what can you do what can you do that's the thing you can't do anything about it he's just stuck so they said my sense is this is the uh who is this Tambler oh he's the uh top rank boxing guy and he says my sense is that Tapia wanted is this Tambler? Oh, he's the top ranked boxing guy. And he says, my sense is that Tapia wanted to fight so badly that maybe he overdid his training and preparation. I prefer to err on the side of more recovery time than he needs rather than less. Yeah. So there we go.

So he's you can't test positive for coke and then be sick for fucking this long. You know what I mean? No way. Oh, and this is a great an ad right under this i love when ads are connected together because you can tell that they think both people who run these businesses think the same people are going to get use their services there is td's new mexico's number one gentleman show club featuring as seen in playboy's book of lingerie alicia sanchez oh and then connected to that as golfer's seminar hosted by bill caskelly's school of golf

so you can either get golf lessons golf same shit same people throwing money up there so april 29th 1991 they said that uh john said that Johnny Tapia here, there's articles of basically it says, where is Tapia's boxing career headed? Where's his life headed? For that matter, where is he? If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault, or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's okay. I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden,

and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole, from SmartList Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you'd learn that that's the science-y term for eardrum.

We embark on a hyperlink rollercoaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout, how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app

or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining W WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. We've lost him. The associate matchmaker for top-ranked boxing, a guy who was defending him three months ago, said he had the world by the tail. He's withdrawn now from three fights with lingering bronchitis and flu he stopped training stopped running and dropped out of existence since he's since he's tested positive for coke yeah so uh after six months they said no one even knows where he is the top rank boxing said quote he's a dead issue right now. It's all passing him by. What a waste.

What a waste. We don't even care. We did. No, they're moving on to the next thing. He said another guy, Trampler, who's the other of another top ranked boxing guy. He said he's on the DL right now. The disabled list. He's not having Tris at a rest stop.

No, he said he can fight without a doctor's clearance. We haven't seen that. So we can't make any fights for we can't fight without a doctor's clearance. We haven't seen that, so we can't make any fights for him. We can't fight without a doctor's clearance. We haven't seen that, so we can't make any fights for him. All we can do is hope that he comes back. Wow. That's it. So they said, what the fuck's going on with this guy, basically?

What's he doing? At the end of the article, it says, Batapia still has one important thing going for him in life, boxing or no boxing. He has real friends. His family, a pretty girlfriend who he smacks around. The boxing establishment hasn't forgotten him either. And so, you know, they said, he's doing this. He's going to do it. They said, then this is amazing too.

Trampler, who's the top-ranked guy, said, this is no reflection on Albuquerque. And I'm not saying Las Vegas is a perfect place for him by any means. I'm not saying he's got a drug problem either. I'm not saying that. That's not what I mean. But this would at least get him away from an environment that's caused him some problems. So let's get him to Vegas and get him away from Albuquerque. Vegas where you'll never find drugs ever.

Yeah, I mean, it's the safest place to go. Especially ones that keep you up for days at a time. Never available in las vegas those casinos make sure that people go to bed with sound judgment and not you know throw away their life savings that's the way it works you know they're very kind really feel good about uh about this place sound not good get a good eight to ten hours you know what i mean because it's a lot of walking that's what they want out of you. No clocks in here, but we certainly give a shit. We care about you.

So he's a mess here. May of 1991, Tapias says he's okay. Really? I'm good now. Yeah, he's great. He's good stuff. I saw the paper, and he said, oh, what the fuck? I'm fine.

What are you doing writing articles about where I am? Jesus Christ. He said he's frustrated by his lingering health problems. So he got a little discouraged and decided to keep to himself for a while while trying to, you know, get strength up. He said it had nothing to do with drugs. This disappearance at all. Not even a little bit. He said, quote, I just lost my three D's, which is desire, discipline and dedication.

OK. He said, I didn't know if I wanted to fight anymore, but now I've got my three D's, which is desire, discipline, and dedication. Okay. He said, I didn't know if I wanted to fight anymore, but now I've got my three D's back. Wow. We should be in the circus, this guy. Not bad. Three of them? Three of them. Wow.

Are they all the same size? I'd really want to know a lot about that. So only two balls? Do you have one? Yeah, two balls, six balls. Do you have like one main, like a big old cock and the other like little auxiliary cocks can you pump from one cock to the other and make one bigger if you like squeeze do they still meet do they still meet at the body or they are they like off each other yeah they all connected or they all have their own separate bases what are

we talking about is there one shaft with three heads coming off? What are we doing here? Explain your tri-penis. Yeah, I want to know what's up. I want to see your tri-tip. Yeah, show me your tri-tip, sonny boy. So he's got his three Ds back, and he's ready to go again. Holy shit. So he said there's been no change to his state of suspension from California, too. He still can't do that.

And they said before, this is one of the promoter guys, he said before he got sick, he's one of the most active champions. He's a heck of a fighter, and we'd like to see him come back. So by June, they said the IBF supports weekly drug tests for Tapia. They don't trust that he's been sick and everything like that at all. Yeah. So they want to. Every Monday to show us. Yeah, he's a champion. He's got to defend his belt if they want to keep it. So this is

the IBF's office in East Orange, New Jersey said, Johnny Tapia is a champion and he's a good fighter. If he's ready, willing, and physically able, we'd like to see him in the ring as soon as possible. But one of the things that we've asked is to make sure the fighter, his own safety is drug free before he enters the ring right we don't want to get blamed later on so um that's pretty fucking funny he's been having problems

here so um july 3rd 1991 the more drug tests for him they're talking about he's still getting the drug tests he said well one one of the commission guys said, we'll continue to test him randomly at our prerogative, but I can't really say anymore. We're talking about someone's medical record, so we can't comment. They're talking about, is it more than that? Is it his head stuff?

What's going on? September 91. He was supposed to fight nine months ago and didn't fight. So he said that, this is the title, quote, Tapia update, boxing reality not far away. Okay. Okay. He said suddenly there's pressure on Johnny Tapia to end his self-imposed hiatus, pressure from his promoter, from rival boxing manager, and from a major boxing organization. So look for Tapia to be back in the ring before October 26th or face an administrative

jab that until now he has managed to slip. So they're going to start fucking sanctioning him for the body. They'll probably take his belt away. They said in order for him to keep his number one ranking, he has to fight within a year of his last fight. Otherwise, he'll drop completely out of the rankings.

That's for the WBC title shot he's supposed to to get what a fucking mess, man. This guy's a goddamn mess. So they said they assigned him fight dates, October 10th, November 14th and December 16th. And then,

you know, get him back into that. So that's what they're going to do. They're waiting on him though. And they said, it's really up to them. Tappy and his trainer to realize the vacations over and it's time to go back to work i don't know how hungry johnny is to come back but the meter's running that's fucking hilarious so october 1991 he's supposed to fight instead he tests positive for

cocaine oh my god yep all of that and saying there's no drugs i've been very ill there's no drugs there's no drugs and then finally after very ill. There's no drugs. There's no drugs. And then finally, after fucking 11 months, 10 months, he's coming back. Test positive for coke. He better hurry up. What are they going to do now? He's a fucking disaster. So October 31st, 1991, he has his license revoked even in New Mexico. The New Mexico Athletic Commission voted unanimously to strip him of his license, citing urinalysis

results showing 150 milligrams of cocaine per milliliter in his system, the highest level measurable. I was going to say that seems like a lot. Apparently, that's as high as the test goes. So it could have been a million or we don't know. It stops at 150. It doesn't matter. It's a lot.

Yeah. They buried the needle is what they did. Yeah. They kept the high score. Yeah. And kept the fucking pedal to the metal here. So it was taken on October 21st, four days before he was scheduled to fight in Vegas. Can't do that.

The commission chairman said that he also tested positive in August as well. But he signed a contract saying he wouldn't do it again and he'd seek help. And it said it would lose his license if he tested positive again, then he tested positive again. The silver-haired, middle-aged white man Jim Boggio, who's the commission chairman, said, this is by far the hardest thing I've had to do since I've been with the commission.

Why? It seems perfectly reasonable. It seems very easy. Very easy. Cut and dry. But we're dealing with somebody's life here and that takes precedence over boxing exactly so who cares about this fucking license what are you talking about he's got why is it so fucking hard he's doing coke and fucking engaged to a woman who seems like his dead mother who he beats up he's got a lot of problems this fucking guy and you can't put that man in the ring because if he's on drugs like that and can't defend himself, you're responsible for anything that happens to that guy.

Exactly. If you're aware that he's doing it. You made him sign contracts and everything else. So the commission said they would reconsider the suspension if he stopped using drugs. Don't do it anymore. He said all he would have to do is come before us and give us some kind of evidence that he's put the drug problem behind him. Okay. So he can't fight in New Mexico here.

But they said that the action would have broader consequences. A lot of states will probably follow suit here. A boxing expert here from California said, I think Johnny's options as a boxer are extremely limited right now. Most of the various state commissions work very closely together these days. So he'd have a hard time getting a license anywhere right absolutely that makes perfect fucking sense so then february 3rd 1993 jesus christ he's gonna get arrested that's because he gets in a head-on car accident and he's drunk oh boy yeah so that's not good albuquerque where do you think yeah yep he was released from

the county detention center after that he refused to take a breath test or a blood test to check for drugs either as well of course so he reportedly um he reportedly his breath smelled of alcohol his pupils pupils were dilated and heart rate and pulses were rapid. Drunk and on coke. Yeah. Yeah. So there he is, and he's a fucking mess. I guess he was driving eastbound on a city street when he reportedly weaved across the lane and crashed head-on into another vehicle. Oh, my. His fault.

He then ran away from the wreck. Bye. I mean, maybe he was training. He had his cardio up. I don't know. The police chased him, and then a struggle ensued in which tapia maced the officer oh he was maced he was maced they had to mace him i was like wow what did he do get the mace away from him police said that the occupants of the other vehicle suffered minor injuries that's good so in addition to driving with while

intoxicated he's charged with leaving the scene of an accident, driving with a suspended license, having no registration or insurance. Wow. Fuck, this is crazy. So he's really not doing well right now. So he is then acquitted on March 11th, 1993, on a charge of threatening a witness. Oh, I guess a jury acquitted him on charges of threatening a witness and and conspired to commit that crime almost a year ago. He said, I was facing three years in prison. I was telling the truth, I guess, is what he said here.

He was charged with threatening James Madrid, who was a potential witness in the murder trial of Tappy, his cousin, Raymond Whiting, his cousins on trial for murder. And they thought Tappy was trying to intimidate a murder witness here. They said that Madrid was approached twice the night of April 5th, 1992, first by a friend of Tapia's who asked, why did you rat on Bones Whiting? And then outside by Tapia himself. Tapia was accused of saying, quote, I can have you killed by giving an ounce of cocaine to someone to, quote, cocktail your house. In other words, burn it down. Molotov cocktail. Holy shit.

So they said that basically it was a who they believed situation. And the verdict hung on whether the jury believed Tapia. And they said, obviously, they must have believed Tapia's story is what the district attorney said. And that was that. So the jury deliberated three hours before saying he didn't threaten to kill someone for cocaine. So there we go. April 30th, 1993, he is... Oh, my God, Jesus Christ.

This is fucking crazy. He was just left in front of a fire station. Oh! They walked out and saw him just in the parking lot of a fire station left there unconscious and he was taken to the hospital for treatment here apparently he was they suspect a drug overdose and someone just dropped him off in front of the fire station wow they'll help him can't take him to the hospital i'll get in trouble i'm told if you leave bodies there uh no questions

asked they'll take them they'll definitely won't just you know leave them in the parking lot they'll clear it out somehow you know what i mean so according to the report tappy his breath smelled of alcohol and paramedics said they suspected a drug overdose was involved as well he was treated and released and then he couldn't be reached for comment his mother-in-law apparently has he's been married now, said, quote, Johnny's fine. He's okay now. He said they picked him up at the hospital that morning and knew nothing. She said, I don't know anything more about the incident other than I picked him up. Accordingly

here, or reportedly here, he had been in a fight earlier that night at the A. Migusto Lounge. Oh, yeah. Everybody goes there. 1240 Core Southwest. We've been there, Jimmy, many times. He told the county sheriff's department detective

that several people were trying to beat him up and that he didn't recall who put him in the car and drove him to the fire station. Holy shit. Tapia said he was worried about his wife, Teresa, new girl, who's 18 years old, by the way. Oh, my God. Whom he recently married. About 5 a.m., the sheriff's department was advised wife, Teresa, new girl, who's 18 years old, by the way, who he,

whom he recently married about 5. AM. The sheriff's department was advised that Teresa Tappy was safe. Paramedics treated Johnny at the scene and took him to the hospital. And then that was that. So, holy shit, man,

he's a fucking disaster. I'm telling you right now, this is, it's going bad. You know what I mean? This is really, and it's not even close to a boiling point here oh boy may 13th 93 he pleads guilty after the dui has to um he is going to be

given 90 days supervised probation for that it's a first offenders program for this he has to perform 50 hours of community service as well i'll all make mistakes, yeah. Totally. Now, he marries this girl named Teresa Chavez. He said that she first spurned his advances because she knew he was crazy. He's so charming, though, obviously. She said, quote, I thought he was nice and he was shy. His being shy is what got me interested. She said, quote, of course, he was playing the shy part. I think he knew he would attract me to him, but he wasn't like other guys.

Guys will try to be all over you. He seemed like someone who wanted to be protected. Wow. And they said, were you shy? And he said, yeah, I guess I was acting. I guess I was, yeah. He's playing, you know, a little hard to get. He's trying to take it down a notch.

Doesn't want to let her know he's going to be beating her up in the future doesn't want to come on too strong and scare her away no you know that goes i'll be the guy dragging you into a bathroom by your hair isn't probably a good come online she said quote when i met him he was on the streets which i didn't know and he was a hardcore drug addict no shit i didn't know any of this and i didn't know he was a fighter i found out later when he wanted to make his comeback that he had this whole career before he met me she had no idea no he was just this guy hanging out doing a shitload of drugs so when they married um then one day after their wedding one of her cousins told her if you want to see what you married go look in the bathroom and when did, she found him in there shooting up.

Oh, no. With a fucking needle in his arm. So she got upset, obviously. Didn't know you were doing IV drugs. This isn't like partying a little. Hey, we did a couple bumps in the bathroom. We're going to dance the night away. We're going to fucking drink a little bit.

I had no idea you had a problem. Let's smoke a joint out back. We'll go in and let. None of this shit. This is i'm in the bathroom with a fucking tied off bro that's a different story yeah wow that's a totally different thing so holy shit he ended up taking off because she got mad so he ends up at a broken down hotel with all of their wedding money. Yeah, well, that's where that shit's at. Yep. So 24 hours later, he's overdosed. Oh, boy. And in the hospital, and then

revived after his heart had stopped beating for a minute and 23 seconds. Oh, my God. More brain damage. Yes. This was the first time he's ruled clinically dead. Won't be the last, though. These two are going to end up having three children together. That was right when they got married, Jimmy. She saw beyond this.

She was like. She let that man put children inside her. Fill my uterus with seeds is what she said. Oh my God. Wow. She let that guy cream pie her. Yeah, absolutely. She had a fucking mind?

She said, go ahead and fucking let her rip. I don't care. Just stay in there. So she said she barely knew the guy when she married him she said when we met i liked him because he was very polite he was willing to take time to get to know me and not many not guys are willing to do that this is all it takes guys did you hear what she just said she didn't know he was famous he was a hardcore drug addict who was homeless at the time and she said i liked him because he was very polite he was famous he was a hardcore drug addict who was homeless at the time and she said i liked him because he was very polite he was willing to take the time to get to know me that's all it took

and now i liked him because i'm selfish in a relationship yeah and now he can run away with their wedding money and shoot it into his fucking veins and she's like it's what a weird crazy thing it's fine so i'm gonna make a dad out of him i think that's the thing she said she knew he had no car no driver's license when they went out he would drive she said he was drive she would drive when they first started going i didn't even have a car he had nothing so she said but i really had no idea i drop him off early in the evening at his house and i'd go right home because i had to go to work in the morning as far as i knew he was going right to bed instead he was going out and hanging out um and johnny says i don't blame anyone except me i'm not mad at anybody they

didn't come to me i went to them meaning drug people um and theresa said though she's you know what the fuck he's unpredictable He's hard to deal with. But she loves him. She loves him. She says, I've had all I could take, though. I told Johnny I was calling a lawyer. I did call a lawyer. I wasn't going to go on living like that.

Right. But now he's OK. He says he credits six people for his new outlook on life. OK. Teresa, Paul and Mellie Chavez, who are his trainers, his trainers, manager and his wife, his mother in law, Annie, obviously, and his grandparents, Miguel and Esther. Obviously, he said those people were there for me. I mean, my grandfather did take me out and have me fight men. But besides that and make me sleep on the porch, they're there for me.

I ripped their hearts out. I've stomped all over them, but they're still here so he said i've been to jail i got tired of it i don't ever want to go back the regulars would tell me i didn't belong there they kept telling me that i had to get it together and get back in the ring so he said that's what it is it's his fear of incarceration that's going to get him going he says yeah, I hate to even say the word Coke. It really scares me. That's a bad sign. Even when I say it, I crave it.

That is bad. That's not good. So now he's living with his wife and his mother-in-law. Jesus, he's keeping an eye there. So he said he plans to stay far away from bad people. He's going to move temporarily to Vegas to train at the gym. That's what he was going to do, but then they were scrapped because they couldn't get sparring partners there for some reason.

So he says that, quote, there's nothing like having good people around you, and I've got that. He's good now. March 27, 1994 is the next time he fights. What the fuck? Three years ago, he was supposed to have a fight. That never happened, and it kept going. That's how long it took.

He's still 22-0-1, by the way. Pretty good. Yeah, he fights a guy who's 2-15 coming in, so this is just to get his mojo back. But he doesn't have his belt anymore. No, God no. Christ, 18 people have had it since then. He took that away after the fight where he failed the drug test right before the fight in October.

So round four, he knocks this guy out. It's a bunch of guys like that. Next guy, Arturo Finito Estrada. Finito, like it's final. I'll knock your ass out. He knocks, Johnny knocks him out, makes him Finito. In the second round, he fights another guy in May of 1994. Now it's every month he's fighting.

May 5th, 1994, he wins a unanimous decision in 10 rounds. That's got to be good for his brain. June of 1994, he wins a 9 out of 10 round knockout. So he knocks a guy out in the ninth round here. He's 25-0. Next up, he fights a guy who's 2-11 at the America West Arena. Look at that. He fights a guy who's 2-11 at the America West Arena.

Look at that. And this is a knockout in three rounds to win the North American Boxing Federation Super Flyweight Championship. Wow. Apparently there's a guy 2-11 who was up for that belt as well. Seems like they were just giving that belt to Johnny on a platter here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fucking ridiculous. That's July 15, 1994.

July 17, 1994, July 17th, 1994. Now they're having fluff pieces about them. The fluff pieces are back, everybody. Oh, boy. Here we go. This is an article from the Daily News. It says Johnny Tappy didn't have to pick himself up to win the vacant NABF Junior Bantamweight title two nights ago knocking out some four foot ten substitute who looked like he was representing munchkin land that's in the newspaper

you can't say that that's hilarious that's they might as well have said some little fucking midget came in the ring and he beat the shit out of him and threw him in the first row we allowed midget boxing for yeah for this guy to get a belt we wanted to make him feel good about himself they say johnny tappy only had one comeback from the dead i only had to come back from the dead he only had to come back from three and a half years of cocaine the press release says he's undefeated tappy doesn't put three and a half years of eating jailhouse slop and waking up in streets with ice pick holes in his head into his win column. The press release says he was fighting cocaine during those three and a half years.

He says, quote, I never fought it. I was with it. I'm fighting it now. Being clean is fighting it. Ready to go. He's fighting at 115 pounds right now. He says he dreams of drugs. He dreams of his mother's murder.

He dreams of all sorts of shit. He's really haunted at night. Don't close your eyes then. That's why he's out doing coke, I think. Yeah. So he says, quote, let me tell you something about little cities, he said. They've got a lot more trouble than big cities. And cocaine, it likes everybody.

She likes everybody. She, that's what I mean. It's back to calling it it. That's good. It don't care where you come from or where you go. It's going to be there. That's right. He says, I always see it.

I see it in my dreams. That's what he said, where he touches it and picks it up and everything else. So he also dreams of his mother. And he says his father had already been shot when he was eight. He doesn't know that, obviously, because it was before him. He said, though, his mother, that haunts him. He said they kidnapped and raped her. Then they stabbed her with an ice pick and hanged her.

She was very beautiful. I miss her like crazy. Easter, Christmas, all those holidays. I'm ripped apart. I see somebody hug his mom and dad, and I'm ripped apart. This dude, he needs to talk to someone here. So he really does. Um,

wow. That's wild. Anyway, he's, uh, the whole thing, he says, there's too much temptation around celebrities and he's got to kind of keep to himself and stay with his wife.

And yeah, he said, I'm a boxer and I'm going to fight. I told him 70. I told him, I'm so, this is the other guy, the Chavez guy.

He said, I told him I'm 70 years old and I ain't got much time. I can go fishing. So you got to fight. Otherwise, I'm going to fucking not bother with this shit. He says his wife and grandparents who raised him helped strengthen him. He said, you know, it was really Paul, though. That's the Chavez guy, his manager.

He says, Chavez says, you don't give up on people. Johnny, to me, is like a son. You don't give up on your son. We'll see. Let's see. Yeah. July 20th, 1994, Tappy is arrested on cocaine charges again. Oh, boy.

Yep, it never stops here. Arrested Tuesday on charges that he and two other men allegedly tried to sell crack cocaine to an off-duty police officer. Okay. He's being held in Albuquerque. Again, charges include possession and conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. All three are jailed on a $5,000 bond. The police believe that the substance involved in the alleged offer was crack cocaine. Even if it wasn't, the charges remain the same because the intent was there. Even if you sell somebody non-crack,

you still get charged with selling crack. They thought they bought crack. You told them it was crack. Yeah. The officer said that at that point it should be fraud too. Yeah. Sir, I'm going to report you

to the Better Business Bureau on top of it. They said that the officer said he was off duty on his way to exercise at the gym when he pulled behind a car at a stop sign in central Albuquerque. Albuquerque? Yes. This fucking paper

is all shitty. Sorry. I'm like, is that a different suburb? He said that one of the men approached his Jeep and asked him what he wanted. I said, I don't want anything. They attempted to sell me. He told me they were going to sell me something drugs johnny tapia the driver got out and stated to me that that they were selling

or what they were selling i told him i was a police officer tapia said relax and then got back in his car and they drove off that's not how that works calm down i gotta go chill out so he said he drove to the gym and called the police station with descriptions of them and the license plate number of the car and then an officer was dispatched and located the car and arrested all three of them relax so that was fucking stupid uh the incident was another in a string of his fucking problems obviously and his trainer paul chavez said this whole thing has knocked me for a loop he's right at the door for a world championship and then something like this happens what can you do what can you do what can you do he's a fucking mess so they said he tested clean last friday in phoenix okay he probably knows how to

test clean now though yeah i'm sure it also doesn't take time to get out that long to get out of your system so maybe he just does he know when he's getting tested he just doesn't they don't know they said but he hasn't been tested he said he knows that if he tests positive he's completely out of the boxing business in New Mexico that's one of the commission guys so turns out that it was

wasn't crack it was soap described as fucking disguised as crack he's not even selling real crack. He's selling burn bags to people. That's fucked up. What an asshole. For money to get real coke for him, huh? Yeah, for money for real coke.

That's all it is. October 12th, 1994, he has a title fight somehow. We're still going to give him a title fight here. Wow. He fights Henry Martinez who's aka is Donald. Again, that's not. Okay. He's 16 and one coming in, and this is his last fight.

It's a TKO in the 11th round, and he's retired here. So Tapia retires his opponent and wins the WBO super flyweight title. Not bad. December 4th, 1994. He says that he can't wait wait he wants to box again he's he's into it he forgets sometimes would that he's so into stuff he says if a guy wants to bang with me i'll bang oh boy oh boy if he wants to box with me i'll box yeah yeah if he wants to punch if he wants to do that he says that um that he's the champion he's

supposed to his manager's telling him to dictate the dictate the pace of bouts and he said he tells me that and i can be a fighter who can dictate nobody can catch me if i box so then the article goes on to say one person who has caught tapia is wife theresa who has meshed well with with chavez to keep the energetic, emotional fighter in check. Johnny and Teresa tool around town in a Plymouth Champ, far from the Rolls Plymouth Champ. What is that? That's a bad car.

That sounds awful. Yeah. A Champ? I don't even know what the fuck that is. I think it's like the Reliant K. That's all they made at that point was Reliant Ks, right? Plymouth, that's what they were making. So, yeah, it probably is.

I think it's similar to that, like a New Yorker. It's not a good car. Oh, God. Far from the Rolls Royce that Muhammad Ali would drive across the countryside. Hey, Teresa, Tapia yells across the South San Jose Community Center gymnasium, what year is the Plymouth? A 72? Oh, 82, whatever.

So it's an 82. It's a bad car. Yeah. Anything made in the 80s is a bad car. This particular car has a blue book of $200 at the time. Yeah. He's doing well. And he says, quote, not even that much, but I don't care what I ride in.

Well, maybe. I'd like to have a 49 convertible. But you know what? People think I'm rich. I'm not. No, I don't think you're ride in. Well, maybe. I'd like to have a 49 convertible. But you know what? People think I'm rich. I'm not. No, I don't think you're rich at all. We know. I think you sell burn bags to undercover cops to try to get coke money.

No. Well, you drive a $200 car. No shit. He said, I owe too much from those four years I had. Too much. And Teresa and I are trying to have a baby. I don't care. Boy, girl, as long as it's healthy.

As long as it's not dumb like me, that'd be great. He says that his manager Chavez, oh, Tapia says about Chavez, he doesn't tell me anything about attempts to have children affecting training. He doesn't tell him, like, hey, don't try to have kids. It's going to fuck up your training. He says he's ready to go, man. You don't have to worry about him. So he fights Rolando Bohol.

Bohol? B-O-H-O-L. Bohol? Bohol? I don't know. Either way, it's December 8th, 1994, and he beats this guy in the second round with a knockout. He's 28-0. Doing great.

Next up, February 95. He beats a guy in a unanimous decision, 12 rounds. He keeps his belt. He's 29-0-1. Next up, Ricardo Vargas. This is a draw. For some reason, there's a draw. I don't know what happened here, but it stopped in the eighth round,

and it's considered a technical draw. So whatever happened, happened, and he's 29-0-2. June 7th, 1995. Here we go. I'll just read from the Albuquerque Journal. That's fun always. Albuquerque boxer Johnny Tappy and his wife were together and, quote, trying to work it out Wednesday after a violent early morning quarrel in which the world boxing organization Super Flyweight Champion allegedly pulled a gun. On her?

On her. Wow. They're living in the same quarters, but there's obviously a lot of stress right now the couple's lawyer said we're in the process of trying to seek counseling for them holy shit we have to fix this oh my god neither tapia or theresa were available for comment no shit what are you going to comment um they the attributed the incident partly to stress created by a serious illness in theresa's family well yeah when you when like your when your wife's aunt is sick you want to put a gun in her face that makes her forget all about the aunt and worry

more about her own fucking safety and well-being real tired are you worried about your uncle's blood clots holy shit yeah enough of that. Enough of his deep vein thrombosis. Because you just told me that was what it was called beforehand. I was trying to figure it out. Enough of that shit. That's like definitely credit for Jimmy on getting the term right because I didn't know what it was before. That's a disease I'm terrified of. Yeah.

Evidently it strikes. It had nothing to do with the case, too. It was something completely different that came up beforehand. It strikes people on planes, man. I know. You know you gotta get up luckily you pee every 15 minutes yeah you're terrible bladders you're terrible bladder and fucking awful gastrointestinal system we're gonna save your life damn it get up and flex these legs constantly Constantly, man. So the lawyer said, I think it was that and I think a combination of a lot of factors that have been going on with Johnny that I'm not at liberty to elaborate on. About 4 a.m., police responded to a 911 call made by Teresa Tapia from the home, that's his wife, where she told police that her husband had come home angry with his eyes dilated, perhaps from cocaine use. Let's go ahead and say from cocaine use.

Probably. A little bit. So they said the, that's, I mean, I guess some shit went down. And they asked the lawyer, what about his drug use? And the lawyer said, Johnny hasn't said anything one way or the other at this point. Obviously, we're going to seek professional help for Johnny to see that he doesn't sink back into usage. Teresa said that they started their argument, or they took the argument outside their mobile home. Let's take it outside.

He's got a belt up in a trailer. He takes a belt home to a trailer. Yeah. Yeah, let's take it outside. Let's take it in public because outside and like your home could be out back. But this is literally, let's take it in the park. Yeah, where it's going to reverberate and rattle off everyone's tin walls. Let's let everybody watch this.

So when they got outside, he went to his car and pulled out a gun. Oh, my God. And then she ran back in the house and called 911 while he ran away. The Teresa told police that her husband had hit her in the past. And the police report is going to be forwarded to the D.A. And they said, quote, we'll investigate the other domestic violence charges and see if there's a pattern. We're not looking to arrest Mr. Tapia now, but we do want to see if he wants to make a statement. I don't think he does.

So they said, I've talked to Teresa, Johnny and Paul Chavez. This is the lawyer this morning. I get the impression that Teresa has been spending a lot of time with her brother who's ill. And Johnny's used to being with her all the time and didn't react well to her not being around. Teresa told me it was a marital thing and they were going to try to work it out. No alarms went off with me as far as his not fighting July 2nd. I told him to really bear down on his training because he's got a tough opponent coming up. And he said he would okay hold a gun to try to keep her home from going out

oh it gets that her brother it gets worse it later comes out that she'll admit that he's he hit her with the gun oh he pistol went through he didn't just take the gun out which is unbelievable um so hoof all right this this is has been, yeah, let's stop right there because I think it's been a wild episode and there's so much deeper stuff coming. And it's a crazy ride. And if we stick around for this, it's going to be like three and a half hours long and we're not going to do it. So, we're going to break this up into two episodes and make them about an hour and a half a piece because the next one, you have got to, wow, there's a lot of crazy coming. Like, it's a wave. Even we have doctor DNA tests coming up.

Like, there's crazy shit coming up, drugs and craziness and death. So get in there and watch it out. I mean, the coincidences that happen, it's wild stuff. So definitely you want to listen to next week. But until then, let's get into all of our other stuff here. Thank you so much for what you do for us and everything and what a fucking mess but if you like the Johnny Tapia story

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Those are called episodes, things to listen to. And they grow. We've had a long weekend, everybody. You have no fucking idea. We got almost boiled to death on a tarmac in Salt Lake City. So not only that, you're going to get for crime and sports, we're going to talk about theme park disasters part two.

Part two. Mid-80s on. So we got a lot of crazy shit to talk about there. And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about a subject everyone's been requesting for a long time now. The Stanford prison experiment. What happens when you put normal people, take them, not prisoners, not people who work at prisons, and you go, your guards, your prisoners, treat each other accordingly, however you think it should be. Whole bad things happen. So we'll talk all about that, how terrible people really are deep down in their brains.

What kind of reptile people we are. That is patreon.com slash crimeandsports and you'll get a shout out at the end of the show, damn it. Jimmy's going to mispronounce your name even though he wants to get it correct and as a matter of fact, you know, let's do it right now, Jimmy.

What do you say? Let's get on, Jimmy. Hit me with those fucking names right now. This week's executive producers are Jordan Bennett who traveled all the way from fucking Canada to come see us again. Thank you, Jordan. It's so nice to see you. I think she's seen us like 15 times or something. It's like 12 at least. It's a dozen.

It's a ridiculous number. Damn it, you're the best. Kyle Norwig in the UK. Thank you, Kyle. You're a fucking wonderful man. Thank you very much. I appreciate you. You're a person.

You're fucking terrific. Thank you. Other producers this week are Arnold Skoland, I think. The turkey leg drunk poly gobbled. Arnold Skoland's Bob Backlund's manager. Oh, is it? That's evidently the worst manager. He threw in the towel. He didn't do shit. He just sat there like a fat bowling ball.

Drunk poly ate a turkey leg in Rocky. And that is donated by the turkey leg. Peyton Meadows, Fester Rat Scramble, Bob Infercock. Oh, Bob Infercock, James. Bob Infercock. Right.

Janice Hill, Matt Villanueva, Paul Villas, Basavius, Brandy Huntley, Dusty Frankenbush, Jordan Overcast, MP, Tina Schabel, Claire Brown, Krista Brumby, Cody Minich, Tane Sorensen-Adams, Brian Beasley, Sydney Jackson, Emily Borgi, Angie Val, Fabian Ruiz, Harrison Parker, It's Just Blake, Chris Koleme Yeah. And Kristen Kolemeyer donated twice. Thank you so much. Oh, that's very nice. Thank you. Sarah Nicholosin. Nicholosin. Nicholosin?

Polly Branham? Nate with no last name. Sarah Prefers. Nate. Prefers, maybe. It might be Prefers. Who do you prefer? Tell us.

Matt Smith. Drellin Lippin. Drellin Lippin. Lipan, maybe? Marianne with no last name. Chili with no last name. Matt Seroff, Anthony Purcell, TJ Schaub, Andy Massey, Sean Charles, Booty Saxton, Morgan with no last name, Catherine Risk, Emily Russell, Stacey Butte, or maybe Butt, it's probably Butte,

Brendan Bockwitz, Luke Jockers, Addie, Addie Lancour, Hazel Tov, that might be Hazel Tov, Okami, Okami, Ukima, Ukima Harris, Ukima. Nice job, Jimmy. Gerald Haggard. I got to talk it out sometimes. Caitlin Hofer, and I still probably got it wrong. Aaron Haddow, Jacob Towley. These are hard.

They really are. To-lee, to-tow-lee. Because you never fucking know how they pronounce this shit. Well, there's no set pronunciation. If you see a word, we've all agreed on it. Your last name, who the fuck knows? Every family could pronounce it differently. We have no idea.

Teresa Nelson Lake. That could be wrong. A2 Brute. That could be wrong. Marsha Mikos. Mikas? I don't know. Brandy with no last name.

See what happens? Johnson. Lillian with no last name. Spencer Porter. Amy Doodle. Sean McClern. Kayla Burns. Sia Rising.y with no last name. See what happens? Lillian with no last name. Spencer Porter. Amy Doodle. Sean McLearn. Kayla Burns. Sia Rising.

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DK Fission. 24-7. Good for you, DK. Melissa Baldwin. Andrea Hecht. Hecht. Hecht. Hecht.

Brenda with no last name. Joshua Jeldon, Mike Wilber, Joe with no last name, Brian Lewis, Genji Gordon, John Barker, David Muelnix, Nathan Patron, James Steen christopher snell uh alissa alissa gorilla what uh that may be uh apple correcting that word maybe whatever your last name is type it into apple and see if it says gorilla uh jay wesley jay wesley roberts jr jennifer mole mole the hill move the hill uh alley crean what is it? Mount Mulvihill. There it is. Jenny Sherman. Danny Hart. Paige Powell.

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Living Dead. Fern Barrel. Brittany Gas. Austin Grubb. Marie Lutz. Lulz. Lutz. Shannon Jones.

Michaela H. Nicole Wetzel. Haley Brummel. Samuel Ritchie. Bailey Bayless. No way. That's pretty rad still. Courtney Nunn or Known.

Noni maybe. Carrie Henry. Crystal with no last name. Julian Lopez. Sarah Watson Ratke. Patreon 1-8-0-0-1-1. That feels like a prison number. Carol Huber. Emily George.

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It's not a word. I don't think it is. You almost made it once. QMK Olsen. Jamie Lewis. Annalena. Jamie Steve. Oh, boy.

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Troy with no last name. Leanne Morgan. Jacob Redens. Radden. Reddens. Caitlin B. Eric Randall. Emily. Leanne Morgan. Jacob Reddins. Caitlin B. Eric Randall. Emily.

Nope. Yeah. Emma Lee. Emma Lee Sundat. Oh, boy. Ryan Tupper. Like the wear. Hey.

Stacey Brown. I hope you have Tupperware money. Christina with no last name. Oh, Christina Dotson. Connie Kramer. And all of our patrons. You guys are fantastic. Thank you.

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