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It's being billed as Johnny Tapia's "Final Fury," a sold-out grand finale to a career spanning 31 years, five world titles, two national amateur championships, 62 pro fights and 162 amateur bouts.

But is it really Tapia's last fight?

I mean, really, really, really his last fight?

It's hard to believe because after all that time and all those fights, we've gotten to know how reluctant he is to give up the life in the ring.

Boxing fans also know that so-called retirees don't always stay retired - just ask Bernard Hopkins or Vitali Klitschko.

On a poll at the New Mexico Boxing Web site (www.newmexicoboxing.com), 45 percent of respondents said they are not convinced "Final Fury" is truly Tapia's final fury.

It's sad to think he might be done. Tapia's last bout means finishing a chapter in local fighting that has gone unparalleled since the Õ20s and Õ30s.

But that's life, mi vida loca or not.

In the end, it's better to end a career on one's own terms. A final victory will, at the same time, help his fans erase the image of Tapia on his knees in September 2005, when he was counted out for the one and only time in his career against Sandro Marcos in Chicago on Telefutura.

Now 40 - young for a man, old for a boxer - Tapia may still retain the heart of el gallito, but he's no spring chicken. All the battles with drugs, death and depression, the comas and scandals - not to mention the 224 wars in the ring - are catching up with him.

Tonight, hopefully, Tapia will add one more obstacle overcome to his list and bounce back from a KO loss with a win.

If his final workout Wednesday is any indication, Tapia should go out in style, outboxing Ilido Julio in a less-than-the-distance showcase bout. But afterward, good showing or not, our hometown champ for more than a decade will have to overcome the final obstacle of temptation.

If Tapia looks good, feels good, and fights with flashes of the sort of brilliance that netted him five world titles and 205 victories, will he think, "Maybe just one more . . .?"

Or two?

Will he think about how only 3,000 of his hometown fans got to see his final fight? What about all those who waited too long to get a ticket?

If Julio was easy, will a rematch with Marcos - who's been KO'd in three fights after his victory over Tapia - entice him?

Will he do what KISS has done since 1995, staging annual farewell tours? Is this the beginning of the "Final Fury Farewell Tour?"

Let's hope not.

While Julio may or may not be an easy foe - he would've been cake for Tapia in his prime - let's hope that win, lose or draw, this is it.

There's no need to do what former undisputed light heavyweight champ Bob Foster did and launch a failed comeback that ended with two KOs. Or refuse to give it up like onetime champion Francisco Tejedor - beaten in his prime by Danny Romero Jr. - who has become fodder, losing his last 10 fights.

The Johnny Tapia we prefer to remember is the guy who defied the odds and, losing the top three years of his prime, came back from the dark depths of drug addiction to become the first New Mexico-born fighter to win a world title.

The Tapia who put on a boxing clinic with Romero in 1997.

The never-dull Tapia who doles out hugs at news conferences like punches in the ring, does back flips after being declared the winner and leans over the ropes to say to Gov. Bill Richardson: "What's up, Guv?"

It's that Dr Pepper-drinking, "Albuquerque, I'm still your hometown champion, I love you, Grandma, Grandpa" feisty fighter we all hope to see tonight in what is, hopefully, the final fury.

"It's the fans that have kept me in this game; the fans I do it for," Tapia said Wednesday afternoon at a news conference.

If that's the case, then it's going to be as hard for us to say goodbye to your presence in the ring as it is for you to hang those gloves up, Johnny.

But it's going to be a lot easier to do if the final image we have of you in the ring is one with your arms raised in victory.