Glen Tapia has been prohibited from participating on the undercard of the Gennady Golovkin-Daniel Geale main event on Saturday at Madison Square Garden due to irregularities in the results of his blood test, Tapia and his promoter Bob Arum informed RingTV.com on Friday.
Tapia was scheduled to face Salim Larbi in an eight-round junior middleweight bout but was informed by the New York State Athletic Commission that he would not be able to participate on the card before Friday’s weigh-in.
Arum said that the determination was made by Dr. Barry Jordan after the commission doctor reviewed the result of a letter written by a New Jersey physician who had examined Tapia (21-1, 13 knockout), a popular 24-year-old prospect from Passaic, N.J.
“They got a report from New Jersey that permitted him to fight, but it showed elevated blood levels or something, and, on that basis, Barry Jordan wouldn’t let him fight,” Arum told RingTV.com.
“This was a New Jersey blood test which New Jersey had given him, and had permitted him to fight. It had elevated levels of something, and, on that basis, Jordan wouldn’t let him fight. I don’t know anything more than that, but I just know that it’s not HIV, it’s not performance enhancing drugs or anything like that.”
Although he did not immediately know of the name of the condition, Tapia said that he has fought while being aware of it throughout his career, which includes four previous appearances at Madison Square Garden and five overall fights in New York.
“I don’t know the name of the condition, but it’s nothing really wrong with me, so I’m f–king mad,” Tapia said. “I mean, I’ve been in 22 fights already. It was just that the doctor that I saw in New Jersey made it look like it was worse than it was, like if I was to get cut, I could die. It’s got something to do with really light blood work. I really don’t have it that much.
“My percentage of it is really low and light, like if somebody was to get cut, you could bleed out because of it. But like I said, I don’t have it, because in my past, I’ve been in tough fights. So it’s only if somebody has it severely or something. I know that I’m going to be cleared to fight for my next fight, but it was just that the doctor made it seem worse than it was when it really wasn’t that bad. It just made it look bad.”
In his last fight on June 14, Tapia scored an 82-second knockout over Keenan Collins at Bally’s in Atlantic City, the town where he had lost his previous fight in December by sixth-round stoppage to James Kirkland.
“I’m just going to go and take a break, and I’m going to do a bunch of tests to clarify it, and to let them know that there is really nothing wrong,” Tapia told RingTV.com. “It’s just that I went to a doctor in New Jersey, and he had to send the letter to the New York commission confirming that I was cleared, but he wrote it really bad. So it’s just really about that one letter and not really about my blood work.
“I’ve been training about three months and a week. I took a week off from my last fight and then trained like that, so, mentally, it’s really hard to stay hungry when you’re training so much. I’m going to take some time off and spend that with my family for two or three weeks, then, I’ll probably go back to California next month and hopefully fight again in October. I’m going to come back better than ever. I’m good. At the end of the day, everything happens for a reason. These are the moments. I’ll be back better than ever.”
I still wanna watch them since I've all given alot of support over the years
