Boxing sensation Mateo Tapia is lucky to be alive after surviving a horrific road accident as a teenager
Mateo Tapia is rated Australia’s next boxing world champion. But Tim Tszyu’s former sparring partner is lucky to be alive to chase his world-title dream.
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He nearly died in a car accident at 16 and the second chance in life is driving boxing sensation Mateo Tapia to be Australia’s next world champion.
Rated a “special” fighter, Tapia faces the biggest test of his career on Wednesday night when the Sydney slugger appears on the Nikita Tszyu-Danilo Creati Fox pay-per-view card at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion.
The 26-year-old is unbeaten in 16 fights (10KO) and takes on dangerous Venezuelan Keiber Gonzalez, who also boasts a perfect 20-0 record, for the vacant WBO Global middleweight title.
Now residing in America to further his career, Tapia was a sparring partner to Tim Tszyu for two years before his move abroad and the middleweight mauler with Mexican blood is tipped to emulate Tszyu by conquering the world.
Tszyu’s promoters No Limit have signed Tapia to their elite stable, confident the 183cm Narrabeen product has the skill set to dominate the 160-pound division.
“Mateo is our next world champion,” No Limit boss George Rose said.
“He is an outstanding talent.
“His story is brilliant. He is the first ever Australian-Mexican boxer — his dad is full Mexican and his mum is Australian — so the fans will go nuts about him in Mexico when they begin to see him on the world stage.
“He went toe-to-toe in the gym with Tim Tszyu for two years and held his own, so there is a lot to like about him.
“You need a bit of edge to become world class and Mateo has that.
“He has a very tough fight against Gonzalez, so we’ll find out if he can go to that international level.”
Mateo is just lucky to be alive to walk into the ring on Wednesday night.
A decade ago, while on the rise in Australia’s junior boxing ranks, Mateo was a teenage passenger in a shocking road accident that provided the ultimate wake-up call.
“Like every kid you go through trial and error and I went through it young,” he recalled on the Grounded podcast.
“The car accident happened when I was 16 or 17. The guy that was driving was speeding, we told him to slow down on the corner and he didn’t.
“He lost control of the car, it rolled three times and everything went quiet.
“If we went to the right, the three of us (in the car) wouldn’t be here today, we would have gone off the cliff, but we went to the left and rolled three times.
“The ‘ambo’ (ambulance officer) pulled me aside after the accident and said, ‘You have your whole life ahead of you’ and that set my mind straight.
“From then on, the next year I turned pro and it all turned around for me.”
Tapia’s former Sydney-based trainer Tony Del Vecchio is adamant the classy orthodox fighter will go all the way.
“This kid is special, he will be a world champion, no doubt in my mind,” Del Vecchio said.
“Mateo has serious power and his boxing IQ is outstanding.
“Mateo and Tim Tszyu sparred thousands of rounds in my gym and they were so good we would have 200 people watching them go at it.
“Hopefully No Limit can turn Mateo into our next big Australian boxing star.”
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Originally published as Boxing sensation Mateo Tapia is lucky to be alive after surviving a horrific road accident as a teenager
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