Glen Tapia uninspired by 10-month layoff, “when am I going to fight?”

0
2649

Glen-Tapia-Glen “Jersey Boy” Tapia (23-2, 15KOs) is itching to get back in the ring, following a 10 month stretch of inactivity after suffering a crushing stoppage loss to Michel Soro of France, who is now ranked as a top 10 Jr. middleweight.  The loss to Soro was the second blemish on Tapia’s career and it’ now it’s back to the drawing board.  However, as the months pass without a fight, Glen is still in the gym training consistently, knowing that the phone could ring at a moment’s notice.  Still, after over 10 months being out of the ring, Tapia is growing tired of just training and not fighting.

“I’ve been in the gym training for 8 months,” said Glen Tapia in an interview with Fighthype.com.

“Me training for 8 months, it’s really hard and wondering damn, when am I going to fight? It’s hard to get up and train every morning knowing you ain’t got a fight scheduled.  But that’s when the dedication comes in because I know something could just pop up.

“We ready, they going to think that I’m slacking.  When I do fight I’m going to be ready.”

Tapia was a promising prospect coming up, turning pro following a successful amateur career with over 100 wins placing in numerous silver gloves and golden gloves tournaments.  His pro career was guided by Top Rank and through their matchmakers was able to build him to an undefeated record of (20-0, 12KOs) heading into his step up fight against the dangerous slugger James Kirkland on HBO.  

While Kirkland was the more experienced fighter, he had been extremely inactive heading into the fight with Tapia, while Glen was very active, even gaining a couple of wins against better opposition.  Perhaps Tapia would be too sharp for Kirkland, who didn’t look good at all in his preceding fight.

At first, Top Rank seemed to be right as Tapia came out fast hurting Kirkland very early in the fight.  After a very competitive start to the bout, Kirkland would whether the storm dished out by Tapia and ended up giving Tapia a brutal beating, pummeling into submission prompting referee Steve Smoger to stop the fight.

It was a crushing defeat, a type of loss that could ruin a prospect.  However, Tapia was able to bounce back against carefully selected opposition and had some momentum going into the Soro fight, but would he meet his match again, getting stopped in less than four rounds.

Glen is now playing the waiting, knowing full well that boxing is a business and that losses could really slow down a fighter’s progression to more lucrative fights.

This time, however, he will come back to campaign as a middleweight after going through a life and death struggle making the 154-pound weight limit against his fight with Michel Soro, which he says really affected his performance.

“My last fight I was just training to lose weight, not even training to box, but to lose weight, and eating like a vegan.

The weight was going down but I wasn’t training hard, feeling weak and three days before the weigh-in I was still 12 pounds over. It killed me. I should have never done it.

“If you want to judge me from any fight don’t judge me from my last one because that was the worst,” said Tapia.

Glen wants to prove to fans that he still has a lot left and that the version they saw against Soro wasn’t the real him and he just wants to give the fans good fights and entertainment.

“I believe in myself and I know what I’m going to do. I’m just here to give the boxing world what I can and to give them a show, entertainment.  I know what I could do,” said Tapia.