New Mexico boxing champ Johnny Tapia is back in the headlines. Last week, the star learned a man he's known his entire life is actually his birth father.
On Monday, Tapia stepped into the ring not to fight or train, but to hang out with the family he never knew he had.
"We're together now, and that's all that counts," Tapia told Eyewitness News 4. He says three weeks ago he was approached by an old family friend with the news that would change his life.
"He says, 'I was with your mother in 1966.' And I said, what? You know, he got my attention really quick," Tapia said.
Last week genetic testing confirmed 63-year-old Jerry Padilla is the boxer's birth father. Padilla has always known Johnny, but only through neighborhood acquaintances.
"Forty-three years of crying, saying my father was dead. And they said my father took off and just left. I had a lot of different situations when they said I never had a father," Tapia explained.

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