By Victor Salazar
Glen Tapia (23-2, 15 KOs) suffered the second setback of his career this past Friday when he was stopped by Michel Soro. The day before Tapia had issues making the 154 initially failing to make the weight. He came back hours later to the scale and made the limit. After his performance on Friday, Tapia admits that the weight was a problem and it made him feel sluggish.
“I felt slow and sluggish,” Tapia said to BoxingScene.com. “I’m throwing roundhouse punches. Even though I won the 1st round and felt slow. I felt sluggish when I got here. It was in the back of my mind a little bit from the day before.”
The issue with weight has been there for his last 3 fights Tapia said but he wanted to make it clear that there were no excuses and Soro was the better man Friday night.
“It’s been three fights,” Tapia said regarding the weight issue. “When I fought in September, I went through hell. I been feeling like that for like a year, even the Kirkland fight, it’s really hard to lose the weight. But I’m like let me get this championship. But no excuses, I lost he was the better fighter.”
Had Tapia won this fight, there was a good chance he would be in line for a world title shot in the Jr. Middleweight Division. Now with the loss it seems like a move up to Middleweight is imminent.
“That’s the sad thing right there. I could have been right in that step to be a champion,” Tapia said. Maybe move up or maybe change my diet. It was kind of hard this camp. I was more focus on losing weight than training. I felt like it was me that was really slow. I was loading up shots were wasted shots. It was the quick shots that landed on him and actually made a difference on him.”
But Tapia feels he will still rebound after this loss.
“I love the doubters, I love everybody but that’s what it is, that’s life. I believe in myself. I’m a be back, you all are going to remember that.”
