Ruelas Needs 5 Rounds to Triumph

The rising star that is 19-year-old featherweight Rafael Ruelas ascended higher Tuesday night at the Country Club in Reseda, where Ruelas stopped Vicente Gonzales of Bell by technical knockout after five rounds.

Gonzales failed to answer the bell for the sixth round, saying that he could not see out of his swollen right eye.

The win was the 17th against no defeats for Ruelas of Arleta and represented the first time in his career that he has had to fight past the fourth round.

“I could have kept on going, I wasn’t tired,” a smiling Ruelas said. “I was feeling good, hitting him inside with short chopping uppercuts. I was hoping to wear him out.”

Ruelas not only wore Gonzales (13-8-2) out, he beat him like a drum from the first round on. Ruelas, a lanky 127 pounds, showed a whipping force to his punches that afforded Gonzales little relief. Ruelas, the 30th-ranked contender in the world by the World Boxing Council, won every round handily and emerged from the fight with his face, for the most part, untouched.

“I saw that he was hurt a couple of times,” Ruelas said.

Ruelas also said that he was looking forward to a possible match with Jeff Franklin, a touted contender who recently defeated Rafael’s brother, Gabriel, in a controversial fight in Las Vegas.

Ruelas’ bout followed four undercard fights. In the most notable preliminary, the comeback trail of Kennedy McKinney, 24, continued on a positive note as the featherweight disposed of Chilo Guzman of Mexico by technical knockout at 1 minute 44 seconds of the fourth round.

The victory was the third in a row for McKinney (8-0-1), who is coming back from drug rehabilitation after winning a bantamweight gold medal in the 1988 Olympic Games.

McKinney toyed with Guzman early before repeatedly unleashing a rapid and painful jab on his opponent. Guzman, though a noted survivor, could not take much of the punishment.

After being knocked into the ropes, Guzman was dazed and the fight was called.

“I’m about 75%, I’ll give you that,” said McKinney, who is on a two-fights-a-month schedule. “In three or four fights, I’ll be 100%.”

In a four-round welterweight bout, Alan (Papa Doc) McMasters of Raleigh, N.C., took a unanimous decision in his professional debut from a tough Lauro Guerrero of San Bernardino.

Lightweight Larry Loy of Van Nuys also won his professional debut in a punch-packed four-round unanimous decision over Tony Rivera of San Gabriel.

The quicker Loy, 132 1/2, who had compiled a 186-11 record as an amateur, was alert throughout the fight, damaging both of Rivera’s eyes in the second round. Two judges gave Loy all four rounds as he consistently landed head and body blows.

In a four-round lightweight bout, Charles Hawkins (6-3) of Phoenix won a unanimous decision over Mario Camacho.