BOXING / TIM KAWAKAMI : Most Damaging Blows for Tapia Have Been His Bouts With Law

Johnny Tapia grabbed the gym phone from his manager and answered the only way he knows how, with an ear-jangling yelp: “Hey! Hey! You there? Hey! “

As always with Tapia, there’s never a doubt that he’s there.

Paul Chavez, Tapia’s 71-year-old manager, guardian and protector, has said that all specific questions about Tapia’s continuing problems with the law are off limits. Tapia is due to be arraigned next week for allegedly threatening his wife with a gun, and late last year was arrested--the charges were later dropped--when he allegedly was trying to sell a bag of soap cut to look like cocaine.

But the hyperactive, high-speed Tapia, 29, finishing his training before an ABC-televised bout Sunday against Arthur Johnson in Tapia’s hometown of Albuquerque, N.M., motored right into a general discussion of his problems without hesitation.

“I do get myself into trouble, no doubt about it,” Tapia said. “But you know what? I also get out of it. I’ve got good people behind me. Things just happen to me.

“I don’t want to be treated like a celebrity, just Johnny Tapia, regular person. A human being like everybody else. I have a bigger name than everybody, so I get a traffic ticket and it’s a big deal.

“And people don’t want to see their celebrities high as the sky.”

No, they don’t. The people of Albuquerque have supported Tapia throughout his careening career, through two Golden Glove titles as a teen-ager, through his sprint through the 115-pound division, which left him poised for a title; through a 3 1/2-year departure from the sport beginning in 1991 because of a series of positive drug tests and, eventually, an admitted addiction to cocaine.

Tapia reportedly has passed more than a dozen drug tests administered by the New Mexico State Athletic Commission since returning to boxing in 1994, and, in the sixth fight of his comeback, beat Henry Martinez for the World Boxing Organization junior-bantamweight title.

Still, Tapia, who fights with a manic, brutal style, cannot seem to avoid problems with the law.

“Certainly, he’s attracted to trouble and trouble’s attracted to him,” said Bruce Trampler, a matchmaker for Top Rank Inc., Tapia’s promoter. “The first couple of times it happens, you maybe say it’s just coincidence. But when it keeps happening, you realize the guy’s a lightning rod for trouble.

“My job as a matchmaker is to put on fights. But for a promoter, that’s lethal, because it kills ticket sales. There was a time last October, when he won the title, that he was the hottest kid in town. Since then, he’s had the soap-selling incident and now this incident. And in both he may well have been innocent, but the perception is there that he is troubled and in trouble and it hurts ticket sales.

“When he fought at ‘The Pit’ [the field house at the University of New Mexico] when he won the title, he had a gross gate of $138,000. And since then he’s fought there twice--this will be the third time--and you could draw a graph and you’d see attendance is going down quicker than his opponents have.”

Tapia’s showcase bout was to have been last May, on the Oscar De La Hoya-Rafael Ruelas card, but he got cut early and could manage only a draw against Ricardo Vargas in a brutal 12-round bout.

Then came the June 7 incident with his wife, Teresa, who called police and told them she thought her husband was on drugs and was threatening her. Teresa has pressed no charges, but because there allegedly was a gun involved, Tapia is facing the hearing.

“I think a lot of people would’ve quit, but I’ve got the heart of champion,” Tapia said. “I’ve got to believe in what’s out there, keep climbing that stairway, climb one step at a time, you know what I mean?

“I’ve had a tough road, but everybody else has had their moments, too. I’ve had a lot of agony, but there’s a road to success, too.”

Top Rank had been maneuvering Tapia toward a big-money showdown with Albuquerque rival Danny Romero, the International Boxing Federation flyweight champion.

But Romero just shakes his head when asked about Tapia now.

“No. 1, the guy needs help,” Romero said. “That fight’s moving out of the picture, not just because we don’t want it, it’s because of his problems. If he was on track, like we are, then it’s a good fight. But he’s not.”

Tapia, who was raised by his grandparents after the still-unsolved murder of his mother when he was 8, has been able to stay clean and steady for brief periods, but not for long.

“When he came back, it looked like he had really settled down,” Trampler said. “He was in the process of getting married, things were looking like he had finally matured and become comfortable.

“When you talk to him, he looks you in the eye, tells you how it was when he bottomed out, that he all but died on the operating table a few times [because of overdoses].

“He comes from poverty and crime and violence. He saw his mother stabbed to death. I really think he’s done the best he could to escape from that, but those are his roots.”

And always at his side, through the darkness and the glory, remains Chavez, about whom Tapia said, “He’s important because I have a tendency of losing track where I’m going. If Paul’s not there for me, then I’m not there, either.”

“It’s a roller coaster,” Chavez said. “Why do I stay with him? Because I love the kid. He’s like a son to me. I’m 71. Once I see that he’s solid, then I will probably get back to retirement again. Time’s getting away . . . “

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Boxing Notes

Rock Newman, manager of heavyweight Riddick Bowe, saluted George Foreman’s decision to discard his International Boxing Federation title, leaving the major heavyweight championships filled by the likes of Bruce Seldon, Oliver McCall and the winner of a prospective Francois Botha-Axel Schulz bout. “I’m glad to see Foreman make that move,” Newman said. “It’s clearly what the IBF deserves. They are an illicit, corrupt organization.”

Foreman’s decision also makes it easier for Newman and Bowe to claim that, as possessor of the World Boxing Organization title, Bowe is the true heavyweight champion. “Clearly, the chickens are coming home to roost,” Newman said. “What we have attempted to establish over the last several months, to showcase Riddick as the best heavyweight in the world regardless of what the organizations do or say, that’s clearly where we are now.”

Newman said Evander Holyfield turned down a guarantee of $9 million to fight Bowe in the fall, which means Tommy Morrison might end up as Bowe’s next opponent.