Tapia Has Taken a Pretty Good Beating in Game of Life

They can break his nose, crack his ribs and knock him through the ropes. They can pound him, bruise him and bloody him.

But they can’t discourage him.

Not Johnny Tapia.

Not after what he’s been through. There is absolutely nothing that Tapia, the World Boxing Organization super-flyweight champion, will ever encounter in the ring that can rival the horrors he has experienced outside it. And, having somehow survived, Tapia regards mere obstacles like Giovanni Andrade, against whom he will defend his title in tonight’s semi-main event at the Forum, with disdain.

After all, consider that Tapia:

--At 7, survived a van crash--it went over a cliff in Los Alamos, N.M.--that killed two people. Tapia suffered a concussion.

--At 8, was horrified by the murder of his mother, who was raped, stabbed and hanged. No one has ever been charged with the crime.

--Became a heavy cocaine user, which resulted in the revocation of his boxing license by the New Mexico Athletic Commission in 1991.

--Floated in and out of jail, charged with everything from assault with a deadly weapon to intimidating a witness to distribution of illegal drugs. He was convicted only once, however, after pleading guilty to assault against his wife.

--Sank so low because of drug use that he wound up on the doorsteps of a fire station and a hospital on separate occasions in Albuquerque, dumped by friends who feared he was dying of an overdose.

Tapia gave up his first passion, boxing, for the all-consuming one of drugs.

“When I was on the streets, I hated boxing and loved drugs,” he said. “I wouldn’t even think of boxing because cocaine was my best friend.”

Somewhere in the back of his tortured mind, Tapia kept his dream of a wife and children, of the family life he had been robbed of in his youth.

That dream became a nightmare in 1993. He married his girlfriend of three years, Teresa, and she became pregnant. But Teresa suffered a miscarriage and Tapia believes it was caused by the stress he had put on her with his wild life.

The low point was Christmas Day, 1993.

He was spending the holiday in a cold, dark jail cell. He had lost his baby, his career and, perhaps, his wife would be next.

“I was thinking, if I could stay clean in jail, why not stay clean out of jail,” he said.

Indeed, why not?

Tapia says he has been drug-free ever since. He is back in the ring, back home with his wife and back dreaming about a normal life.

In the ring, Tapia, who turns 29 later this month, has risen to new heights. He was 21-0-1 and had a dozen knockouts before losing his license, but the only title he had to show for it was the United States Boxing Assn. super-flyweight crown. Since coming back in the spring of 1994, Tapia has gone 12-0, with a technical draw, getting seven knockouts and both the North American Boxing Federation and WBO titles. Tapia successfully defended his WBO crown four times last year.

Tonight, he will fight Andrade (17-2, 12 knockouts) on an HBO card that will be televised, delayed, at 11.

Tapia would like to fight a few more times this year, but insists he will retire Dec. 31. “It’s over,” he said. “I’ve done everything. Now, I just want to keep my senses.”

Most people who watched Tapia grow up didn’t figure he had much of a shot at that.

Boxing Notes

In tonight’s main event, Marco Antonio Barrera (39-0, 27 knockouts) will defend his WBO junior featherweight title against Kennedy McKinney (28-1-1, 17 knockouts), former Olympic gold medalist and former International Boxing Federation champion.