Never thought much of Tapia at all. No disrespect to his memory I didn't buy his juke and jive act. Roman.
Roman was a really good boxer... I think Tapia was a guy that needed his opponent to carry the fight to him ... Roman wouldn’t give him that luxury
I can understand people disliking Tapia. You might have found him annoying, but I assure you he wasn’t putting on some act. That’s just how he was. For a lot of reasons I won’t go into now. All fine and dandy to dislike him, but it’s a no-damn-good reason to blow off his abilities, which were many. Tapia might’ve showed more versatility than any fighter who ever fought below Bantamweight. He was just so unpredictable. You rarely ever saw his mania channeled into the controlled execution of a 12 round game plan. In fact he’d do the opposite and make things harder on himself instead. A man of his superior talent shouldn’t have had the kind of struggles he did with lesser-thans in the ring. But, it was either that or drugs for him. That was his way of feeling alive. Still, every so often it all clicked and he was able to hold it together for the duration of a full fight. In those instances, he showed boxing skills every bit as good as Roman EVER did. Yes, I’m fully aware of what I just stated. I consider his title winning performance against 2-division champ Nana “Roman’s Bane” Konadu to be the defining example. No, I’m not drawing any correlation between how either of their respective fights turned out with Konadu. That’s a good nickname for Nana, though. I do consider it to be on the shortlist of my favorite boxing masterclasses. If you haven’t seen it, please don’t Boxrec and take the official scorecards to heart. It wasn’t close at all. I saw it as basically a white wash. Along with being one of the most impressive technical outboxing displays in lower weight history.
What you said about Tapia isn't wrong, but Roman remains a bad style matchup for him. Tapia was far more effective against guys who came to him, and from range Roman had the more educated jab, better feet, and faster defensive reflexes. He also hit hard enough to keep Tapia honest from the outside. I think Tapia's live here, but I would favor Roman to box his way to a decision win.
Roman definitely didn’t have better defensive reflexes. He remained defensively responsible at all times, which Tapia absolutely did not do. No problem with anybody picking Roman, either. You could well be right. Do you recall any fights either had against other pure boxing types? I’m drawing a blank. This is like an Arguello/Pryor type of matchup for my money. Difference being the fights go the distance.
