ALBUQUERQUE -- Midway through his bantamweight title fight with Jorge Eliecer Julio, an angry Johnny Tapia reverted to an old habit, the one that contributed to the first loss of his career.

Tapia was getting away from his best punch -- the left jab -- and giving in to the temptation to slug it out with Julio. Tapia had done the same thing in his loss to Paulie Ayala last June in Las Vegas and his trainer Freddie Roach realized it.

Jim Gray-gate, Round 2

Television sports reporter Jim Gray, covering the fight for HBO, got a surprise from Johnny Tapia after Tapia's victory over Jorge Eliecer Julio. "Apologize to Pete Rose," Tapia said, referring to Gray's much-criticized questioning of the former baseball great during the World Series last year. Gray grilled Rose about whether or not he had ever bet on baseball. Gray recovered quickly Saturday night, saying that Tapia's comments weren't relevant to their discussion, and continued the interview. -- ESPN.com

When Tapia returned to his corner after the sixth round, Roach slapped him.

"Johnny stopped boxing and stepped in to face him," said Roach after Tapia took Julio's WBO bantamweight title with a unanimous decision Saturday night.

"For two rounds he laid in like he did with Ayala," Roach said. "So I slapped him and told him if he wasn't going to follow the game plan, I was going to hit him again. I had to get his attention, and it worked."

"I told Freddie: 'That guy (Julio) over there is already hitting me, why are you slapping me,"' Tapia said after the win.

The tough love reminder did its job and Tapia won his fourth world title.

While Tapia, 32, occasionally went toe-to-toe with the hard-hitting 28-year-old Julio, he also did enough damage with his jab and jog away style to hand the Colombian his first loss in six years.

"Now I can finally relax," said Tapia, who after his loss to Ayala -- the first of his career -- took five months away from the ring. He then made his return by taking on a fighter who hadn't lost since dropping a unanimous decision to American Junior Jones in a WBA title fight on Oct. 23, 1993.

"I didn't have a Christmas. I didn't have a New Year's," said Tapia."I'm going to have one tonight."

Tapia ran his record to 47-1-2. Julio, who had won 16 straight going into the fight, is 42-2.

Tapia won his latest world title in the same arena -- The Pit -- where he won his first. He stopped Henry Martinez in the 11th round to win the WBO junior bantamweight title in October 1994. He took fellow Albuquerque bantamweight Danny Romero's IBF bantamweight title in a July 1997 unification bout in Las Vegas and beat Nana Yaw Konadu for the WBA bantamweight title in December 1998. He lost that belt to Ayala in a slugfest in Las Vegas last June.

"I've always been down in life and I've always been able to pick myself up," said Tapia, whose career has been a saga of triumph and tragedy. His mother was murdered when Tapia was 8 years old and he was banned from boxing for 3½ years in the early '90s because of a cocaine addiction.

"It's a tough, tough world that I've lived in and now I'm very, very happy," Tapia said.

The hard-punching Julio was the aggressor through most of the fight but had trouble getting inside Tapia's left jab. When Tapia's jab didn't slow down Julio, the champion's overhand right did.

The three judges scored the fight 118-109, 116-111 and 119-108 for Tapia.

Tapia repeatedly complained to referee Mike Ortega that Julio was leading with his elbows and Julio was penalized a point in the seventh round.

"I won the fight," said Julio. "They took a point away from me and it was him who was head-butting me. But all that is OK. It's his time."

Tapia was so confident of victory that he dropped his hands midway through the final round and dared Julio to connect. With Tapia's head bobbing and weaving, Julio's punches hit mostly air.

Earlier, heavyweight Francois Botha (40-2-1, 25 KOs) stopped Steve Pannell (33-7, 27 KOs) at the 2:08 mark of the first round. Botha, who briefly held the IBF world title in 1995 but was stripped of it after testing positive for steroids, knocked Pannell down three times.