Johnny Tapia was never going to make it alive into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
He had way too many addictions, way too many demons. The only place Tapia ever felt peace was in the ring itself.
”Johnny always said that when my career is over I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself and I probably won’t last long,” his widow, Teresa, said. ”He lasted one year from when he quit boxing.”
There was never really an official cause of death. Tapia’s heart simply stopped beating and, unlike his previous brushes with death, this one was for real.