After her husband Johnny passed away in 2012, Teresa Tapia thought she was out of the boxing business. Until she was back in.

And it just didn’t feel right.

“It was probably around 2019 and I remember being at a fight - actually it was Austin Trout who I was promoting at the time, and we were doing a reality show on The Impact Network and what nobody knew was that I would go to my room and I would just cry because it just felt so weird without Johnny.” 

Johnny wasn’t just anybody, wasn’t just any husband. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Johnny Tapia was as close to a Sports God as you would find. Everywhere else, he was a three-division world champion who would be posthumously inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2017. But it was what happened outside the ring, his “Vida Loca” that made him relatable to everyone. 

“He was such a people person and so hands on,” said Teresa. “He wanted to make everybody feel special. He would always tell us that, 'Hey, it takes five minutes out of your day to go out of your way for someone, and that memory will last them for the rest of their life, so what's the problem?' That's what he would always say.”

But if Johnny’s life was crazy, Teresa’s was even crazier because she had to try to not just get her husband prepared for fights against elite competition on the sport’s biggest stages as his manager, she had to try to save his life as his wife. And she did, so many times, until finally on May 27, 2012, he died of heart failure at the age of 45.

Just like that, Teresa Tapia was alone. Boxing continued, though, and it dragged her back in for a while until she had to get away.

“I actually took a couple years off because when Johnny passed, it was hard,” she said. “I did a couple promotions just to honor the legacy and then it just got so hard and I thought, 'You know what, I don't want to be in this without him,' so I stayed back from boxing until I came back in again. I always think, I know how he was and what he wanted and expected from me, so I kept going.” 

That didn’t stop the questions. Not from the media. But from inside.

“Do I want to be there or do I not?” 

“Is this for me?” 

“What am I supposed to do?”

Then her sons, Johnny Jr. and Nicco, decided they wanted to be part of the family business. 

“I actually had steered them away all their youth, and I just didn't want them to go into that,” she said. “For a lot of reasons. Being a mom, you don't know how you'll feel when your kids fight. Secondly, because of who Johnny was, I didn't want them to have the pressure of everyone expecting them to be just like Johnny because they're their own individual people. So there were a lot of reasons why I kind of pushed against it. But when they got old enough to make up their own mind - the younger one is 16, the older one is 21 - what can you do? At this point, if they're still wanting to do it, then I have to be supportive and step aside and just let them go after their dream. But I didn't want to just entrust them to anybody.” 

So mom turned back into promoter, and on Saturday, at the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort & Casino in Mescalero, New Mexico, 16-year-old Nicco Tapia will make his amateur boxing debut on the undercard of the pay-per-view event headlined by the exhibition bout between Marco Antonio Barrera and Daniel Ponce de Leon. 

It’s not an easy time for a mother, especially when she’s promoting the event, as well, but she did get a taste when her son Johnny Jr. made his debut in July. It was a late start for the 21-year-old, who planned on a full-time gig in the military before becoming a victim of a road rage incident that left him with a bullet in his leg, but boxing entered his life just in time. And right on time for mom to issue some tough love to her babies.

“When the older one fought, the butterflies came out, but honestly, once he stepped through those ropes, it's like the mom turns off like I used to do with Johnny; the wife turned off and became the manager. It's just so weird how it's your kid, but it's not. The mom went out the window and the other person came in. He was like, 'You are meaner than anyone else.' (Laughs) Well, you want to get in there, you need to back it up.”

Johnny Jr. lost a split decision in his debut, but he passed a bigger test when he fought past the doubts in his mind when faced with adversity in the ring.  

“At one point he got hit on the nose and it started bleeding and you can tell he ran out of gas,” Teresa recalled. “After the second round, he went back to his chair and he was looking at me like, ‘I can't do it.’ And I walked right up and said, 'No, you suck it up, you get in there and you finish this.' Because there's no shame in losing, but there is shame in quitting. You do not quit. This is what you chose, now get out there. I can't help them in there, so I can't be nice to them. How am I gonna baby them when someone is beating them? You have to teach them that this is the life they chose, so nobody's gonna baby them. Whoever they're fighting isn't gonna sit there and play nice. They don't care that they're Johnny's kids. They want to beat them up even more because they're Johnny's kids.”

That’s the fighter in Teresa Tapia. And that’s why she’s still in this business. Not for the glory or the paydays, but for the fight. It used to be her husband she fought for; now it’s for her sons. And for all those who step between the ropes. So it’s safe to say that this isn’t a one-shot deal.

“I'd like to be in it for the long haul,” Tapia said. “I started something called the Forgotten Fighter Fund, and it's just been a great thing. Golden Boy came on board to help with production, and they liked that I'm doing this to raise funds for these fighters that need assistance and are just left out there. Because I knew that's what Johnny wanted to do.”

I wonder out loud why she would want to be in a business that has so many more downs than ups, even at the top level. And she’s seen it all, so she isn’t coming into this with blinders on. But she’s still here.

“When Johnny was at the tail-end of his career, you know how it is when a fighter's at the end, they don't get that same treatment and they become an opponent,” she said. “I wasn't gonna allow that to happen. So I stepped up and promoted him and then toward the end of his life when he was transitioning into being a trainer, he wanted to train and he wanted me to promote. So I think I just wanted to stay true to what he wanted in life. And now the boys are fighting, so the legacy continues. I figure it's a crooked business, but if you get some people who are good and want to do the right thing, then maybe we can make it a little bit better.”

Sometimes a little bit better is enough. And if life has gotten a little bit better each day since she lost the love of her life, maybe that’s good enough for Teresa Tapia, as resilient a soul as you will ever meet. 

“I think having the kids, because after Johnny's passing, you want to give up,” she said when asked where that resilience comes from. “You don't want to be here and you just kind of exist for a while. And you don't know how to navigate through life without him and you don't know where you belong. Johnny used to tell me, 'After my mom was murdered, I don't know where I belong.' And I never understood it until he passed away. Sadly, Johnny passed away, my brother passed away, my mom, my grandmother, my sister. My other brother passed away the week before the last fight. So I've been through a lot in life, I've been through a lot of trauma and traumatic events, and I think the resilience just comes from looking at it and it is what it is.” 

She pauses before continuing.

“I feel like Johnny's here, though, I really do. Being a husband and wife of 20 years, he would tell me, 'I know I'm gonna die first and it's supposed to be that way because you're gonna be here and you're gonna raise our boys and you're gonna do a great job. If it would be the other way, I would do a horrible job and go right after you.' The kids have been what's kept me going because you can't give up when you have these children who already lost a parent and they depend on you and they look to you for everything. Look what happened to Johnny. He didn't have his mom, she was murdered, didn't know his dad until later in life, so it left him just lost and wandering, not knowing what the good was out there. Even though he made it, he still felt like he was empty, so I have to do differently for my children.”