Stunned Ruelas Rises to Knock Off Hernandez

When Ramiro Rodriguez of Tijuana called in sick during the weekend for his scheduled fight Tuesday night against unbeaten Gabriel Ruelas, no one even raised an eyebrow. Boxers tend to bail out more often than the captain of a termite-infested boat.

And when a new opponent was found, Ruelas and trainer Joe Goossen once again didn’t raise an eyebrow. Just how much trouble could Freddie Hernandez of Mexicali be?

Ruelas, of course, wasn’t thinking about any of that in the third round of the fight. He was mostly wondering how he ended up on his back. And if he had any spare time in those few seconds, he might have been wondering how he was going to get up.

Hernandez dropped Ruelas, the highly touted featherweight from North Hollywood, with a screeching left hook to the jaw. It was the first time in 16 pro fights that Ruelas had been down.

But he got up quickly and, with the exception of the seventh round when Hernandez rocked him with a three-punch combination, regained control of the bout and went on to an eight-round unanimous decision over Hernandez in what became the feature bout of the night.

The scheduled feature was canceled when Lionel Washington of Bakersfield, the California heavyweight champion, sustained a fractured rib in sparring Sunday. X-rays examined Monday by the state athletic commission verified the fracture, and the bout was called off. Washington was scheduled to meet Alex Garcia of San Fernando, a former national amateur super-heavyweight champion. But the Ruelas-Hernandez brawl more than filled the gap.

Ruelas, 123 pounds, has piled up nine knockouts in his 16 consecutive wins, and he caught Hernandez, 127, in every round with the same punches that left other opponents twitching. But Hernandez never flinched, counterpunching effectively. In the third, he ducked a Ruelas left jab and crashed a left hook to the chin of Ruelas, 19, who crashed to the canvas.

Ruelas was up within three seconds, however, and survived the rest of the round. His other close call came in the seventh, when Hernandez landed three solid punches to his chin and had him sagging in a neutral corner.

In an earlier featherweight bout, Rafael Ruelas--Gabriel’s younger brother--ran his record to 10-0 with eight knockouts when he knocked out Jose Luis Vasquez of Mexicali at 2:08 of the first round. It wasn’t however, the shortest fight of the night.

Heavyweight Rocky Pepeli of Burbank, 5-2 with five knockouts, knocked out Rick Giannone (0-2) of Simi Valley at 1:53.

And that wasn’t the shortest fight of the night, either. Heavyweight J. R. Frye, (2-0, two knockouts) of Phoenix took that honor. The heavily muscled former Oklahoma State wrestler, knocked out Troy Baudoin, 2-1, at 1:12 of the first round with a wild flurry of punches that left Baudoin, of Los Angeles, slumped in a corner for nearly a minute.

In the first bout, Danny Garcia, 141, of Oxnard scored a unanimous decision over Art Lizarraga of Bakersfield in a junior welterweight bout.