Ruelas Draws 1st Main-Event Assignment : Goossen Confident That Young Fighter Can handle Rodriguez

If you’re a fight manager with a hot property like Gabriel Ruelas, you can find a lot of reasons to stay cool and go slowly.

Such as:

* Ruelas is only 18.

* He has had only 10 fights (all victories; all six of his knockouts have been in the first round).

* He has never gone more than four rounds.

* Facing an experienced fighter can be disastrous to someone as green as Ruelas.

Reasons enough? Not for Dan Goossen.

Goossen has put his North Hollywood fighter in against Jorge Rodriguez of Bell in a six-round featherweight match Tuesday at The Country Club in Reseda, Ruelas’ first main event.

Bell’s record is only 11-13-3, with two knockouts, but among his wins is a seventh-round knockout of Louie Prado last month in Fresno. Prado is ranked among the top 15 in his weight class by the North American Boxing Federation.

Bell’s losses have come at the hands of such fighters as Kaokor Galaxy, a former World Boxing Assn. bantamweight champion; Steve McCrory, an Olympic gold medalist as a flyweight; and Jorge Diaz, ranked third by the World Boxing Council.

Does that make Bell world-class? It sure makes him a relatively classy opponent for an 18-year-old with little experience.

“Bell is a real durable guy,” said Joe Goossen, Ruelas’ trainer. “He’s tricky enough to be concerned about and he’s well-conditioned enough to know that he’s going to be there. We know what we’re getting into, but we feel Gabe can handle it. He showed that in his last fight.”

That was against veteran Mario Lozano in Las Vegas a month ago when Ruelas won a unanimous four-round decision, turning from a puncher into a boxer in the process.

“That was a main-event fighter,” Goossen said of Lozano. “Gabe outboxed him easily. I wanted him to show me he could box and use his intelligence as well as his speed and power. He combined all four and showed me he’s worthy of stepping up.

“Gabe has too much talent for me to be overly concerned about Tuesday. I’m concerned about him doing the right things in the ring, about his conditioning. That’s where my concern stops. As long as Gabe does what he’s supposed to do, I feel I do not have to be worried about the opponent.”

Part of Goossen’s confidence might stem from that fact that he has been watching Ruelas fight for six years. Gabriel and his younger brother Rafael, also 18, showed up on Goossen’s doorstep at the old Ten Goose gym in North Hollywood when both were 12, trying to sell candy.

Instead, they got hooked on the sweet science and never left.

Rafael, also unbeaten with a 4-0 mark, including two knockouts, also will appear on Tuesday’s card. Fighting as a junior featherweight, Rafael, also of North Hollywood, is scheduled to go four rounds against Javier Lara (6-7-2, one knockout) of Panorama City. Lara also has fought Prado, coming away with a draw.

Other preliminary fights Tuesday night include: a six-rounder matching junior middleweight Ron Wiswell (4-10-1, two knockouts) of Bakersfield against Carlton Brooks (9-6-2, three knockouts) of Gardena; a four-rounder involving lightweights Tony Rivera (1-1-1) of North Hollywood and John Almaguer (5-1, four knockouts) of Campo, Calif.; and another four-rounder featuring heavyweights Luis Mora (0-1) of Phoenix and Troy Baudoin (making his professional debut) of Los Angeles.

First bell is at 7:30.