The last time Johnny Tapia died it was when an FBI raid on his trailer prompted him to swallow so many bags of cocaine that he spent 36 hours in a coma. These things happen.

From witnessing the kidnapping of his mother, who was later stabbed 33 times with a screwdriver and pair of scissors, to “shooting enough heroin to kill two horses”, his story is one of death and drugs and degradation. “Disney want to make the film,” he said. “But they are concerned it’s a little dark.”

It is pitch black. Tapia, who turned 40 last week, brings the curtain down on one of the most mind-boggling tales from the sporting vista on Friday. The five world titles that he achieved remain a triumph of resilience, given that he once took an ice pick in the head and later tried to commit suicide on his mother’s grave.

Does he have any fears that the fading spotlight will unleash his hyperactive demons? “I’ve already died four times,” he said. “Nothing can touch me.”

The tattooed lettering on his stomach is a tribute to his tribulations. Mi Vida Loca began in earnest in 1974, when he was 7 and woke to see a blue and green pickup truck pulling past his house. Half-asleep, he peered out of the window and saw his mother chained to the back and screaming for help. “I told my grandpa, but he said it was just a bad dream,” Tapia recalled. The next day a man named Richard Espinoza arrived at their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, asking for his wallet. He had fresh scratch marks on his face.

“You didn’t ring the police in our neighbourhood,” Tapia said. “But it went on for days and then we read in the paper that a woman had been killed. There were pictures of her jewellery. Espinoza had beaten her, stabbed her, bludgeoned her and left her.” She was found and taken to hospital. “Espinoza then went to the hospital with a wrench hidden in his clothing to finish her off,” he added.

It was almost a quarter of a century later when Tapia, whose father was murdered before he was born, discovered who had killed his mother. Espinoza had been killed in a car crash and, in Tapia, feelings of guilt, rage and unsated revenge festered. “I wanted him so bad, I wanted to kill him for what he had done, but I was denied that chance,” he said.

He spent two weeks in his room with the blinds closed and then went out to defend his WBA bantamweight title against Paulie Ayala in Las Vegas. For the first time in 48 professional bouts he lost and a month later, as his wife washed the dishes, he put a gun in his mouth. “She saved me, but the gun went off and so I ran to the kitchen to get a knife,” he said. “All I remember is seeing blood. I don’t remember coming to.”

It was not the only time that Tapia has been consumed by suicidal thoughts and he mentions the time, when high on a speedball (a mixture of heroin and cocaine), he had an out-of-body experience after slashing himself on his mother’s grave.

But in judging Tapia you really have to appreciate where he came from. This was a vicious, depressed underworld where his babysitter taught him to tie tourniquets for the junkies who streamed in and out of the house; a place where police shot his friend in the head and then told him that the bullet was meant for him; a wasteland where another friend hanged himself in jail and where he stashed his peers’ bricks of cocaine in his WC.

He tried to stay away from drugs, but they permeated the atmosphere and their seduction almost destroyed him. They also robbed him of three years of his career when he was banned and then jailed. “I’m like a nuclear reactor, I’m lit up all day long and nobody knows how to turn it off,” he said.

Nobody except Teresa, his manager, mentor and wife. “She is a saint,” he said. “Believe me, I’m not an easy person to live with and I’ve put her through some serious s***.” Not least their wedding night. With a room booked in a Sheraton, Tapia insisted on taking his wife to a sleazy motel, “a dive for hookers and johns”, and wandered out to get some drugs. “I did a speedball and got dumped in front of a fire station,” he said. “They took me to hospital and registered me as John Doe, DOA. Overdose.

“It was some wedding night. I was clinically dead. A few hours later I woke up and ran naked into the parking lot and hid in the back seat of a car. It was insanity.”

It would be just another sad chronicle of a life lost amid easy temptations were it not for the fact that Tapia was such a good boxer, a hard-hitting, relentless figure who won the junior bantamweight title in 1994 and then added two versions of the bantamweight crown and the featherweight title. There have been some epic wars, not least two bouts against Ayala and a bitter local rivalry with Danny Romero.

Tapia has not boxed since September 2005, when he was stopped in two rounds by a journeyman, Sandro Marcos, but says he wants one more bout to leave the sport on a positive note. He claims Ildio Julio, his Colombian opponent in Albuquerque on Friday, is a warrior, but 29 knockouts do not disguise a record of four straight defeats. Billed as The Final Fury, it is really a valedictory outing for a popular has-been in front of his home crowd.

“Boxing is simple, using is hard and cocaine is the toughest mistress,” Tapia said. “I’m just surprised I’m still alive but I’m a fighter because my mother was. Even when she had been stabbed repeatedly and beaten with rocks she was trying to crawl home.”

Among those watching with interest will be the next generation. Johnny Tapia II makes his professional bow next month, and his father will be in his corner. For a man who says that he has never known whether he should live or die, that is a small miracle from the dark side of the darkest art.

Life and crimes

October 12, 1994 Returns from three drug-fuelled years to win vacant WBO super-flyweight title

July 18, 1997 A year after receiving a suspended jail term for threatening to shoot his wife, he beats home-town and alleged gang rival, Danny Romero, for IBF version

December 5, 1998 Relinquishes titles to move up a division and win the WBA bantamweight belt

January 8, 2000 Six months after losing his WBA title to Paulie Ayala, his first defeat, he bounces back to win WBO crown

February 24, 2002 Wins IBF featherweight crown. Stripped a month later for failing a drugs test

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