BLEACHED smiles and cosmetically engineered chests bounce unsteadily past beggars slurring their way through rehearsed pleas for money. Flashing mirages of wealth seduce the money-thirsty revellers and illuminate discarded images of prostitutes that line the sidewalk. Las Vegas is a City of Sin, the best and worst of humankind, mixed together to form a sickly but irresistible trail of destruction.
Anchored in the chaos is a slight man, clear-eyed and full of life, gleefully posing for photographs. Johnny Tapia, perhaps the most infamous substance-abusing boxer of all time, is the striking advertisement for sobriety in this land of the wasted. The 45-year-old has been clean for over two years now, since being released from prison and embarking on a comeback. As I walk away, I wonder if he still will be after a night gliding through the silky temptations of Vegas.
?It doesn?t matter where I am,? Tapia tells me the following day when I ask if Las Vegas is the best place for a reformed drug addict to hang out. ?I don?t have a temptation because if I want it [drugs] I can get it, wherever I am. I have a reputation, I can just make a phone call. I have my beautiful wife with me, nothing will happen to me if she?s here.?
Teresa Tapia looks at Johnny, her husband of 18 years and the father of her three children, and smiles gently. She is happy to be his side, observing and listening. It is when she can?t see him that she worries. Johnny?s cocaine habit has caused his heart to stop beating on five separate occasions, he has been in three comas, and he has been in and out of prison. None of it occurred on Teresa?s watch.
?It?s a constant fear,? she admits about Tapia?s eternally perilous position on the wagon. ?Johnny always makes sure we?re with him when he goes anywhere. It?s like a safety net he has for himself; he wants everybody around who?s positive and who won?t do anything wrong. He suffers from bipolar disorder and it makes it very difficult ? the highs are very high and the lows are very low. If he says ?I?m just going to run down the store to get a Dr Pepper,? you can?t help but think you should go with him, and wonder what is going to happen. It?s always fear, always, definitely, and he sees it too, he?ll see the look on my face.?
When he trains she follows him, at his request, to the gym in Albuquerque. His ring return has kept Tapia out of trouble since 2009 ? boxing was a condition of his release from prison ? but now he wants to retire. ?I hurt, I?m old, I?m done,? he says, almost poetically. His disproportionately large knuckles bulge through the skin as he twists his palm skywards.
Teresa reaches over and squeezes the hands that won four world titles in three divisions ? super-flyweight, bantamweight, and featherweight. She has mixed emotions about him quitting the sport; it has been a rare constant in their perilous journey together.
?He?s been like a freak of nature where he?s never really taken any type of punishment in the ring where he?s been hurt which has been a blessing,? she says. Her voice is angelic at times. ?He has so much knowledge and he?s training fighters and he?s doing some really awesome work with them. You want him to retire and make that transition to a trainer because he has so much to give, but at the same time there?s always that fear [that he?ll relapse]. With Johnny it?s hard to decide what is best for him but, as a wife, I?d love to see him retire and be a husband and a father first and foremost.?
Johnny clearly still adores boxing. He is easily distracted as we all sit together deep inside the mysterious green labyrinth that is the MGM Grand. Press conferences about the Super Six have just taken place and Tapia?s eyes twitch as Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch amble past. He leaps up, like a puppy dog, and gallops towards the fighters. Johnny chuckles excitedly and hangs off their shoulders as someone takes a photograph of the three of them together. His infectious laughter makes a delightfully curly sound. It is addictive. Teresa loves it when her husband chuckles like that; it means he is in a good place.
