Glen Tapia, aka Jersey Boy, called in to the office on Monday of this week. He is steady and focused. He is ready for THE PROMISED LAND?
?I was raised out of steel here in the swamps of Jersey, some misty years ago. Through the mud and the beer, and the blood and the cheers, I?ve seen champions come and go. So if you got the guts mister, yeah, if you got the balls. If you think it?s your time, then step to the line, and bring on your wrecking ball.??Wrecking Ball, Bruce Springsteen
This coming Saturday on HBO, Glen Tapia, 23-years-old, undefeated at 20-0, fights ONE STEP UP against big hitter, sometimes up, sometimes DOWNBOUND TRAIN James Kirkland, 31-1. Tapia with an amateur pedigree of Junior Olympic National Champion and an amateur record of 130 wins and 13 losses, co-managed by the boxing knowledgeable Pat Lynch and promoted by powerhouse Top Rank against Kirkland whose career surely has been as high, low, low, high, as that legendary Jet Star Roller Coaster down Asbury Park Way. Turn on your HBO, grab your bowl of popcorn, your beer (Tecate if you want to support beer that supports boxing!!) and don?t blink. This one may end being about NO SURRENDER.
What?s on Tapia down by the Boardwalk
??meadowlands where mosquitoes grow big as airplanes, here where the blood is spilled, the arena?s filled???Wrecking Ball, Springsteen
The land of WORKING ON A DREAM for Glen Tapia is going to take place Saturday night at Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, which for him will be ?MY HOMETOWN.?He will of course take energy from that fact and indeed wears his ring moniker as ?Jersey Boy? with a huge fan base of HIGH HOPES and as the LOCAL HERO. Tickets have been selling briskly. As for Mr. James Kirkland he is back again with his trainer Ann Wolfe. He will draw his own thunder of inspiration from Wolfe as he clearly has done in the past as she once again molds her fighter to try and be TOUGHER THAN THE REST.
The past has shown Kirkland to be done in without the big bad Wolfe applying her trade and bringing him to peak level performance. One of the big questions in having Wolfe back and whether SHE?S THE ONE is the fact that they have not been back together very long and THE TIES THAT BIND may not have enough time to bind when facing a level of what?s on Tapia. Kirkland may, or may not, have seen BETTER DAYS as apparently in the past he has found that IT?S HARD TO BE A SAINT IN THE CITY.
Aside from his stellar amateur background young Tapia?s days have been spent well: Tapia?s background also includes primary pre-championship sparring camps with the likes of Kendall Holt, Vernon Forrest, Joshua Clottey, Alfredo Angulo, and a six-month stint in the Philippines as one of Manny Pacquiao?s chief sparring partners before his fight with Margarito.
?Come On and Take Your Best Shot, Let Me See What You Got??Wrecking Ball, Bruce Springsteen
Glen Tapia?s ring moniker/name of ?Jersey Boy? in itself kind of gets the adrenaline going doesn?t it! New Jersey! From the old vintage class cool of entertainer Frankie Valli, to the gritty song storytelling from the heart of ?The Boss? Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, New Jersey has character unto itself. Need we even have to mention, down Hoboken way, the ?Chairman of the Board? one of a kind, only kind, Frank Sinatra? Hell even the actors from New Jersey who play tough guys are guys who look tough enough to lay you down in the parking lot, from the likes of the late James Gandolfini to Ray Liotta. Don?t even get me started on the punch you in the snout pugilistic types of Tony Galento, Mike Rossman, Jersey Joe Walcott, and a guy you sure as hell would not have wanted to meet in a street fight back in the day, THE PRICE YOU PAY, Mr. Frankie DePaula.
This fight?s going to give you more action than that Crazy Mouse ride, Steel Pier Amusements style, and that old Water Gun Fun game down The Boardwalk way. But this is more than winning the big stuffed animal prize. The winner is going to step into major action next year, and it will be GLORY DAYS. For the one who suffers the travels of RADIO NOWHERE comes the agony of rebuilding in venues of lesser scale and lesser money in a business that is never EASY MONEY. This whole New Jersey atmosphere is going to bring a feeling to this fight of electricity and INDEPENDENCE DAY, 4th OF JULY ASBURY PARK like fireworks!
?Come On and Take Your Best Shot, Let Me See What You Got??Wrecking Ball, Bruce Springsteen?OR NOT
?Stories, even ones with jumbled timelines, and time periods are linear. They start, stuff happens, they end.??Famous screenwriter Jeff Nichols
I first had the pleasure of a very brief ?hello? with Mr. ?Jersey Boy? Glen Tapia after his Madison Square Garden two round KO victory earlier this year, January 19th, on the undercard of Garcia vs. Salido and the exquisite Golovkin vs. tough guy, deserving of another title fight with Kid Chocolate, Rosado. The young 23-year-old Tapia had shown boxing pedigree speed and power in his victory. I was sitting ringside when Glen came by and had a brief hello. He is an exceptionally polite and respectful young man and he was well dressed, wearing a classy overcoat, which one couldn?t help but note. A professional in and out of the ring! He gave me immediate REASON TO BELIEVE that in this day and age of silly face-to-face post weigh in stare downs, smack talk, and embarrassing YouTube segments, that there are still young pros acting with the class and style of the Mancini and Arguello types. YOU?VE GOT IT Mr. Tapia.
Time move forward to the post-fight, Bradley vs. Marquez to bumper-to-bumper motor vehicle mayhem parking lot JUNGLELAND and my Wynn Resort VIP guest limousine seems to have disappeared. No problem there as one of our guests advised that if we couldn?t find the limo they would double back shortly thereafter and that was fine with me as it was pre-arranged as such. Now having said that, and being the impatient El Bastardo Magnifico that I am, I decided, along with our Fearless Editor, to tromp back by the media room and see if we could hitch a ride. There was a big tour bus back of the media center with a gentleman wearing an extremely expensive looking suit (think a better looking version of the old suntanned actor George Hamilton). The gentleman noticed my Wynn VIP card hanging around my neck and asked if I was in need of a ride. But of course! LUCKY TOWN!
Moving to part two here, you have to appreciate a friend of mine was a little less of pocket, shall we say, having seen Bradley win his close points decision over Marquez and as such I was in, shall we say, a mood, for it was certainly not our night of BOOK OF DREAMS.
With Fearless Editor in tow immediately behind me, I stepped into a darkened bus the whole of which was filled with perhaps eight very well dressed middle-aged men, give or take a plus, and two younger gentlemen. ?Good evening, I hope you don?t mind but the gentlemen at the bus door said I could hitch a ride.? From the back came a ?no problem? at which point I blurted out the following: ?Okay, hands in the fucking air, which one of you guys voted for Bradley? Who the fuck voted Bradley after all that!? Now, in hindsight, I have to tell you I?m surprised somebody didn?t get up and just smack me in the back of the head, but nonetheless there were some chuckles and a few fingers pointed at a young man who was text messaging on his cell phone. He looked up and smiled and simply said, ?Real nice guys.? I never did get an answer as to whether the young gent went Bradley or Marquez. What I can tell you is that looking back at the matter, in amusement, where some six-foot-two, one hundred eighty-nine pound strange bald guy gets on a bus and asks for a raise of hands, in the fashion as such, that all where class and smiles on the bus.
We arrived back at the wonderland of Wynn Resorts and got off the bus. I asked one of the other gentlemen who the person was in front of me as I had a vague recollection of having met him. The response was Pat Lynch and in embarrassment I said ?Pat, we met at the Boxing Hall of Fame, I was sitting at a table with Steve Smoger and Chuck Zito was sitting immediately behind me. I think you were sitting with the Duva table to my right.? Pat laughed and said ?that?s right.? In turn I mentioned, ?Pat, hell that?s funny that I didn?t recognize you but the bus was kind of dim. The next thing you?ll be telling me is that your star pupil Glen Tapia?s around and I missed him too!? Well the young man with the cell phone who was so polite tapped me from behind on my shoulder and? ?Hi, it?s Glen Tapia!?
Glen and I talked briefly on the casino floor as we all walked back towards the restaurants and our rooms.
Schmidt: ?You know you?re a better boxer than Kirkland.?
Tapia: ?I?m a better boxer, I think.?
Schmidt: ?There?s no reason that you need to brawl with this guy. You can break this down boxing.?
Tapia ?I don?t need to brawl with him but if he wants to brawl I can brawl with him.?
Schmidt: ?No doubt, but you don?t have to. You?re going to be in Atlantic City, ticket sales are going to go brisk because of your name. It?s your backyard and it?s about winning. Tough guys, smart tough guys, they?re more than just brawling. They?re smart. Besides, you don?t know what version of a Kirkland you?re going to get.?
Tapia: ?Yes. That?s right, I don?t know what version I am going to get. ?
This fight will be dictated by Tapia more so than Kirkland?s raw power. Tapia is the more multidimensional fighter here and certainly would appear, based on previous fight reviews, to have the higher boxer skill and hand speed to slowly break Kirkland down. One must also consider Kirkland?s roller coaster career of the past few years and his layoff. This is one of those Al Davis just win baby type of fights if you?re in the Tapia think tank.
Tough Guys Do Dance!
I spoke to Pat Lynch last Friday on the phone. He?s a very accommodating gentleman and we shared a few stories and laughs. I told Pat a quick story, as story telling is what we do here at Boxing.com in terms of a place, a face, a person, a time, an event!
Last week an old high school friend Johnny P. showed up at the law firm. I haven?t seen Johnny since early days high school. You see back in the day Johnny was a tough guy. He ended up doing a few break and enters and some minor league drug deals here in town. Suffice to say his current day situation is not the best. While Johnny was doing his endeavors I was working as a doorman, meet and greet, at a local strip club and as a bartender upstairs on Friday nights. I was also double timing in a woodworking factory lifting stereo units up and down in a spray booth conveyor belt area. And, of course, on the side working my way through school.
I took Johnny P. out for lunch last week. He smiled at the end of lunch and simply looked at me with moist eyes, thoughts of yesteryear, and stated ?I guess there?s various versions of tough guys eh Schmidty. My old man was kind of like you; he got up early every morning and went to work in the city. He did that all those years but I thought I was the tough guy.?
There are tough guys and smart tough guys, Glen Tapia. The tough guys, the non-smart ones, well they mostly end up as one of those portraits in Springsteen songs, as broken out antiheroes wandering the back tents of some Carnyville Asbury Park scenario, OUT IN THE STREET, broken down SPARE PARTS.
Every morning Glen Tapia gets up, 5 am in the cold of the Jersey morning, DANCING IN THE DARK, on his toes shadowboxing, and does his sprints, plus his 5 mile runs as his mind replays his LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS.
As I mentioned to a very respectful Glen Tapia, a month ago past on the Wynn Casino Resort floor, you don?t know what you?re going to get with Kirkland. He may be in shape, or slightly out of shape, and I am speaking not only mentally but also physically. What you know is you may get extreme danger as he has thunderous power in both hands.
If tough guy Tapia fights smart, smart guy tough, then you will see high skill set vs. front forward lights out RAMROD power. We are not talking here of Mr. Tapia doing BORN TO RUN but rather using his skill to beat Kirkland apart, head and body, round by round. There is no need for Glen Tapia to play early on ROULETTE and go into the FIRE early. He has the skill set to bank the early rounds to his favor, without a ROLL OF THE DICE. Late in the fight, if it goes that long, and Tapia has to prove it all night, POINT BLANK Kirkland will be OPEN ALL NIGHT.
It will be exciting! Turn on your HBO! For young Glen Tapia will it be MAGIC and will it be THE RISING in New Jersey the likes, maybe, just maybe, the likes that has not seen for some time. Perhaps, just perhaps, Pat Lynch who has a heavy HUNGRY HEART will smile looking post-fight to the Atlantic City sky, and whisper to himself, and to a SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT, of THUNDER ROAD, ?we have something special.?
Side Note #1
I was in the office late Sunday night to pick up some paperwork for the ensuing week. There was a message on the office answering machine from Glen Tapia apologizing for missing my phone call, that he was on the way to the gym late Friday afternoon, and that he looked forward to speaking to me and promised to call back again if I missed him. ?The Professional!? Glen called in to the office on Monday of this week. He is steady, focused?ready for THE PROMISED LAND.
Side Note #2
This one is for little Stevie down by The Boardwalk and all the guys, you know who you are, 1978, who had the pleasure of being at Toronto Maple Leaf Garden?s to watch ?The Boss? slide one end of the stage to the other on his knees and do a marathon three hour set. That?s Jersey style?giving it all you got! You guys wanted 10 Boss song in the article, we give you 30 plus! And to Pat and Glen thanks for the input, and to the inspiration of a warrior, Arturo Gatti!
