If you have little patience with out-of-control, drug-addled young males who shrug about ?mi vida loca,? you may have reservations about watching Tapia, HBO?s latest documentary, which premieres Tuesday.
But Tapia is as irresistable as its subject, Johnny Tapia, the charismatic lower-weight divisions champion of the 1990s who was forever overcoming seemingly preventable personal problems, especially his cocaine addiction. It seemed willful at the time.
Well, you?d be messed up too if your father had disappeared before your birth and your mother suddenly disappeared one day when you were 8, turning up dead eventually, of course. ?I still remember waiting at that screen door for her to come back,? Tapia says.
That?s about all the evidence you need to explain why he couldn?t help himself a lot of the time as he was beset by the usual array of disorders such as bi-polar and ADD.
Tapia truly validates Johnny?s memory, and because he was such a compelling combination of humility and bravado, that?s important to boxing history. That?s pretty much what producer 50 Cent is trying to accomplish, abetted by boxing promoter Lou DiBella, a former producer at HBO.
There?s plenty of boxing footage, including Tapia?s intra-Albuquerque rivaly with Danny Romero and his highly questionable decision losses to Paulie Ayala.
Although HBO?s documentaries voice-over ace Liev Schreiber predominates, Tapia himself provided much of the narrative on camera shortly before his death.
Based on the way he looked, his death at 45 couldn?t have been surprising.
But appearances are deceiving, and Tapia deserves , as it turns out, this artfully executed chance to set the record straight.
