The Greatest Knockout Artist
of All Time: ALCOHOL
Part II
By the 12th round, Dong was exhausted and an ever pressing and fresher Gomez took it to him and knocked him out at the 2:40 mark to win his first world title and create mayhem mixed with happiness at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. Gomez’ fighting success would continue but so would his youthful desire for booze, drugs and love of partying.
Gomez proved tougher than many experts figured, he not only set a record by scoring thirty-two straight knockouts in a row, he demolished several big name boxers in title fights. He knocked out Royal Kobayashi in three, TKO’ d Juan Antonio Lopez in seven, Leonardo Cruz by TKO in thirteen, Carlos Zarate (52-0) by TKO in five, felled Nestor Jimenez in five, Carlos Mendoza in ten, Nicky Perez in five, Ruben Valdez in six, Derrik Holmes in five, and Jose Cervantes in three. He then made the mistake of moving up to the featherweight division to take on Mexico’s most astute and complete fighter, Salvador Sanchez. The match took place on August 21, 1981 to a sold out crowd at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Gomez never had a chance against one of the sharpest and formidable boxers to ever come out of Mexico. It took a few rounds for Sanchez to gain the advantage in the fight with Gomez confused and bewildered by the talent he was up against. In the eighth round Sanchez mercifully ended the fight with a jawbreaker punch that sent Gomez down and the referee to the rescue, resulting in stoppage and a TKO win for Sanchez.
Gomez quickly recovered and went back to super bantamweight and in 1982 title bouts, crushed Juan Meza in six, Juan Antonio Lopez in ten, Roberto Rubaldino in eight and Guadalupe Pintor by TKO in fourteen at the New Orleans Superdome. Though he did move up and win the featherweight title from Juan Laporte by decision in March of 1983, Gomez was disheartened over the death of Salvador Sanchez in an automobile wreck. He had hoped to be totally prepared for a rematch with the super star of boxing. He defended his newly won title against Azumah Nelson in San Juan on December 12, 1984 and his glorious road of success came to a huge halt as Nelson knocked him out in the eleventh round after trailing by a large margin on every scorecard. Then his world slowly started caving in; after moving up in weight (super bantamweight) and challenging Rocky Lockridge for the title in Roberto Clemente Stadium, all was seemingly well. Rocky obliged in May of 1985 and in a vicious toe-to-toe fight Gomez won by majority decision…barely. Strange too, Gomez couldn’t fight again for a year. When he put his title on the line in May 1986 against a much lesser experienced foe in Alfredo Layne (13-5), he was no longer the Gomez fans knew up until the Lockridge and Nelson fights. The upstart Layne took the fight to Gomez and TKO’ D the champ in the ninth round. After two more knockouts of mediocre talent, Gomez hung up his gloves; he was cooked (burnt out). And he had a dark secret.
Upon retiring, Gomez took his little secret to Venezuela rather than to Puerto Rico. His little secret was alcohol and drug abuse. He ran afoul of the law there and they jailed his butt. The good news was that he agreed to attend a drug rehabilitation center in Columbia after some six months in a cell. He then moved back to Puerto Rico, got his act together, and became a friend of Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho. Camacho decided to hire Gomez to help
with the training of his son, Hector ‘Camacho’ Jr. Later, Gomez felt he needed a place in the United States to work from and settled down with his family of three daughters and one son in Kissimmee, Florida in 2006. For better or worse, Gomez at least has a life to live. How about Johnny Tapia?
Alcohol and drugs were no friends to five-time world boxing champion Johnny Tapia. They are the demons that have tormented him for over two decades, invaded every vessel and organ of his body and their addiction has led to poor decisions made by the diseased, in this case, Tapia. Just forget about Tapia getting messed up on beer, wine, tequila, mescal or the popular’ Mexican Three Wisemen’ (1/3rd Jack Daniels, 1/3rd Jim Beam & 1/3rd Jose Cuervo). He probably did but that was child’s play for Tapia, who is justly rated in the top ten of boxers who have been overwhelmed by the white powder and prescription medications. Tapia has always been the victim when it comes to drugs. Yes, it was shockingly sad that his mother was stabbed twenty-six times in a brutal murder that went unsolved for some twenty years. Tapia was only eight years old at the time and her death psychologically scarred his mind forever. It was such an unspeakable crime and we can only imagine the emotional hurt of Tapia as a kid and as an adult. Yet, he was given some of the best psychiatric treatments and medications for long periods of time. He is right about saying the therapies didn’t work. However, his own track record of continuous drug use didn’t allow for the treatments to be effective as possible. New Mexico Judge Kenneth H. Martinez has bent over backwards to give Tapia probation (even for overdosing and going into a coma after his last fight in February of 2007) and lesser sentences than what the general public could expect. Maybe Martinez is totally wrong in not incarcerating Tapia. It happens but not too much crack and coke are available inside the prison walls. Anyway, with Tapia recently violating probation again by using coke, he has now been committed to the psychiatric ward of Bernalillo County Metro Detention Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tapia just turned forty-two and his life if you can call it one is iffy at best.
Tapia’s track record of fighting is remarkable as well as it stands today at 56-5-2. As a youth he won two national Golden Gloves titles. After turning professional, he would gain recognition and respect because every time he entered the ring he brought his ‘A’ game. In 1994 he knocked out Henry Martinez for the WBO Flyweight title. He successfully defended his belt against Jose Rafael Sosa, Ricardo Vargas, Arthur Johnson, Willy Salazar, Giovanni Andrade, Ivan Alvarez, Hugo Soto, Sammy Stewart, Adonis Cruz, and Jorge Barrera. He upped the ante by taking on another New Mexico legendary fighter, Danny Romero, for his title and Danny’s IBF Super Flyweight title. In a hotly contested bout, Tapia edged Danny by a decision. He would later gain a WBA title with a majority decision victory over Nana Konadu before losing the WBO belt to Paulie Ayala. He would regain the WBO belt in January 2000 with a decision over Jorge Eliecer Julio. His last great fight was April of 2002 when he went to New York and took the IBF Featherweight title from Manuel Medina. A subsequent loss to Marco Antonio Barrera in November of 2002 in Las Vegas was a strong signal that Tapia was losing his top skills. Indeed, the vicious cycle of partying with alcohol and drugs is going to eventually take any man down regardless of conditioning and toughness. Tapia is no exception to the rule and what a pity he is now, locked up in a psychiatric ward. Remember, we all had a ray of hope that Tapia would improve when author Bettina Gilois wrote his life story in the book, ‘Mi Vida Loca.’ Our hope was foolish. He was too far gone. What a shame that one generation of boxers after another doesn’t get it about drinking and drugging; like it is inherited and can’t be stopped.
Tapia and Benitiez are doomed at this point of their lives. Others may have had hope; let us consider Tony Ayala Jr.
A sexual predator from the get-go, Tony Ayala showed his bullish ways by raping a girl when he was only fifteen. It was reported that he beat and raped the girl at a drive-in theater in San Antonio. What did he get for this reprehensible act? A lousy slap on the wrist is what the judge gave him. Why? His dad was a boxing territorial boss and his son’s future in the game was too promising to be compromised by a rape conviction. Politics just as we witness weekly with college and professional athletes beating raps regularly with money and the right contacts all the time.
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