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Glen Tapia to fight Keenan Collins on June 14

Fighters Network
29
Apr
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Glen Tapia (R) nailing Abraham Han with a right hand on July 12, 2013, in Las Vegas. Photo by Naoki Fukuda.

Junior middleweight contender Glen Tapia will return to action on June 14 against Keenan Collins at Bally's Event Center in Atlantic City, N.J., according to his manager, Pat Lynch.

BoxingScene.com originally reported the story.

A 24-year-old from Passaic, N.J., Tapia (20-1, 12 knockouts) was last in action in December, when he was stopped in the sixth round by hard-hitting James Kirkland at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. The 37-year-old Collins (15-8-3, 10 KOs), of York, Pa., was last in the ring for a fourth-round stoppage loss to Danny Jacobs last April.

Tapia will be trained up until fight night by Freddie Roach, although Roach will not be in his corner because he will be with WBO 140-pound titleholder Ruslan Provodnikov when the Siberian fighter takes on Chris Algieri on the same night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.



"What happened was Glen had always wanted Freddie to train him," said Lynch. "He met Freddie when I sent him to the Philippines to spar with Manny Pacquiao. So, when he was there they hit it off, and he really liked him. After the Kirkland fight, he said, 'I would really love for Freddie to train me.'

"So I said, 'You would have to go and speak to him.' So I flew him out to Los Angeles, and he called me up and said, 'Freddie has agreed to train me.' He came back, and went back out to Los Angeles to train and he's been there ever since. He's there now and it's working well, so far."

Lynch said that Tapia is at Roach's Wild Card Boxing Club training alongside Provodnikov and three-division titlewinner Miguel Cotto, who has a June 7 fight with RING and WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez.

"I think that they train at different times," said Lynch. "His first day of sparring is tomorrow (Wednesday)."

Prior to facing Kirkland, Tapia knocked out of Elco Garcia in five rounds, and before that scored a bloody eighth-round technical knockout victory over Abraham Han.

"He's a good kid and he's recovered well since the Kirkland fight. We didn't want to bring him back right away," said Lynch, adding that Tapia will be ringside on May 17 when four-division titlewinner Juan Manuel Marquez faces Mike Alvarado in a welterweight fight at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif. "This will have been a good, solid six months before he steps into the ring again. It will be a well-needed rest, so things are going well, so far."

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