Answer me these questions three on JOHNNY TAPIA

115 is a bit out of my area(s) of expertise, but I like Tapia, so I'll add my thoughts. I'd think he'd have to be highly rated all-time at 115. He wouldn't make my ATG top 100 but he's not miles outside it either.
I think his best performance was against Danny Romero who was very highly regarded at the time. Winning the title at 126 over Manuel Medina is a good effort too.

 

i would love to give my boxing respect to anyone who wants hear it on johnny tapia

1. johnny tapia was a very good boxer that the sports world immediately adopted because of his hard life, enthusiasm, likeable personality, showboating, natural ability and rivalries with other good boxers.

to me tapia resembeled a fast handed, fast legged pot shotting fighter with good upperbody movement. he had very very fast hands, very very good boxing skills and had one of the best chins in the lower divisions history. but, his emotions ultimately led to the outcome of his fights. sometimes he would slug to much and aside from a terrific left hook to the body, johnny became very hittable when he chose to stand and trade... and he would do that more often then not.

i think tapia's best performance was against danny ramero which was a epic fight of a huge puncher against a quick fighter.

tapia's worst performance i think was his lone ko loss to sandro marcos which was by a body shot.

2. tapia has to be in the top 5 at junior bantamweight

3. if guys like herold johnson, mike mccallum and gene fullmer are gate keeping the top 100, then its tough to say if he gets in. but in his prime, i would give tapia a good shot against many of the great/ very very good fighter in the smaller weight classes including; mark johnson, raphael marquez, wilfredo vazquez, oscar larios and the younger greener versions of morales, barrera and pac.

5 world titles in 3 diffrent weight classes, he was deffinetely legit for all the hype that surrounded him.

 

Big fan. Best performance is probably the Romero fight, but a Tapia fight is always entertaining. Can't really comment on the ratings, I haven't got enough knowledge on the lower divisions.

 

Tapia was pretty much an underdog for that one as well.

 

1. Great fighter. Best performances were probably vs. Romero, or the one in which he won the bantamweight title.

2. Very arguably #1, or at least close to that.

3. Possibly.

 

Off topic, but if someone has Harold Johnson merely "gatekeeping" the top 10, he is being hugely underrated IMO.

 

the two most underated wins i think tapia has are his wins over arthur johnson and nana konadu.

johnson was the 88' olympian who i believe beat kennedy mckinney twice for the seat. the win was truthfully controversial, but the win is a very good name on tapia's resume.

nana kanadu could be one of the 10-15 greatest fighters from africa who knocked out veeraphol sahaprom and gilberto roman who both have their arguments into the hall of fame. tapia imo utterly dictated the fight, the kanadu knockdown was bogus and the one judge that scored it a draw saw it much diffrently then i did.

 

I've never seen a fighter perform differently then his norm then Kanadu did against Tapia.

No joke. He must of been dying in the ring from something, because that definitely wasn't the Kanadu I saw flatten Veeraphol in a few rounds.

 

Konadu was past it for both of those fights.

Sahaprom was just a bit raw and overconfident against him or he probably would have won.

Tapia at his best was a bit like a much better version of Mijares at times.

 

I thought one of his best performances was the rematch with Ayala. Tapia took Ayala to school! How Paulie got that decision I will never know...

 

i am very happy to help pacfan,

:thumbsup