50 Cent sees some parallels between his life and that of late boxer Johnny Tapia. That's just part of the reason why the rapper is co-executive producing TAPIA, the HBO documentary about the colorful boxer.

The vivid documentary shows the meteoric rise up the flyweight and bantamweight boxing ranks for the five-time champion Tapia, as well as his personal bouts with everything from losing his mother at a young age to suffering multiple drug overdoses. Tapia died of heart failure in his Albuquerque, NM, home at the age of 45 in May 2012.

50 recognized plenty of parallels between his life and that of the wild Tapia, while co-executive producing this documentary with longtime boxing promoter Lou DiBella.

"The loss of my mom early. At the age of eight, I lost my mom," 50 told BET.com during a special screening held at HBO headquarters in New York City on Wednesday night. "It's the same experience there."

"Just the way he lived his life, you hear in the film, ‘Don’t concentrate on the past, concentrate on the now, the moment.’ It kind of felt like he knew he wasn’t going to be here," he added. "It's like watching the last entries of a diary to his life."

While promoting the stirring documentary, 50 shut the door on boxing fans' hopes of finally seeing the long-awaited Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao fight.

"I really don’t see that fight taking place. I don’t see [Mayweather] taking that fight. I don't. I know Floyd, I know he knows he doesn’t have to," 50 told BET.com. "No matter how [fans] feel, they’ll watch the next one and he’ll leave boxing when he’s ready to leave boxing, on top."

That's unwelcome news to boxing fans, who finally thought the fight had some serious traction after longtime Top Rank CEO Bob Arum revealed to Philippines newspaper GMA News that CBS Corporation President/CEO Leslie Moonves is brokering a deal — possibly between HBO and Showtime — which would make Mayweather-Pacman happen in 2015.

The TAPIA documentary will air Tuesday night, December 16 at 11 p.m. on HBO.  

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(Photos: Noam Galai/Getty Images)