After the upset victory of Michel Soro (26-1-1 with 16 KOs) over Glen Tapia (23-2 with 15 KOs) in the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. I spoke with Tapia, to get his after-the-fight reaction as to some of the things that went wrong. Tapia, who grew up 15 mins from the venue, is nicknamed “Jersey Boy” and had a heavy home arena advantage as he was going against the Frenchman, Soro. However, Tapia, and the home crowd was shocked as Soro stopped Tapia in the 4th round.
Do you think it’s time to change your style?
“I did change my style. My game plan today was not my game plan that I was supposed to go into there with. It was just really slow, like from the 1st round, and I’m loading up while he was in the corner, I was hitting him, and for the crowd it was good, but I wasn’t really hitting him, He was blocking shots. It was really so stupid. Things I don’t do in that type of a fight.”
Was his style an issue?
“I was me personally. I was sluggish. I just felt like real slow from the 1st round, just really slow. I couldn’t get off how I wanted to.”
Did having trouble making the weight have an effect on you?
“Yea, it did, but I’m not going to sit here and talk about that because it is going to sound like I’m making an excuse. He beat me. Even though I felt like it did, he beat me. He was the better guy, so I can’t really talk about that.”
When do you see yourself getting back in there?
“I’m going to take some time off. I’ve been in the gym since January. I took like 1 week off, and I was right back into the gym. It was too much. Well, not too much, but from January to the two months to March and then I came right back, it was just a lot.”
What do you have to say to all the fans that were out there chanting “Jersey Boy” for you?
“The crowd understands what type of person I am, what type of man I am, and win lose or draw they going to always love me because of that reason and I’m going to love them forever because win lose or draw I’m going to give it my all.”
