Ruelas Stops Former Sparring Partner in 1st Round

This morning, as Rosendo Alonso of Bakersfield tries to get the train whistles to stop blowing in his head, he probably will wonder just how bad he might be feeling if he were not a friend of Rafael Ruelas.

Ruelas of Arleta pushed his record to 19-0 on Tuesday night at the Country Club in Reseda by knocking Alonso out with a whistling left hook to the jaw just 1 minute 1 second into the first round of a scheduled 10-round bout.

Ruelas, 19, ranked No. 20 as a featherweight by the World Boxing Council, and Alonso, who fell to 32-23-3, trained and sparred together for more than three years in Campo, Calif., and remained good friends since Ruelas shifted his training site to the Van Nuys-based Ten Goose Boxing Club.

“We are friends, but we weren’t in the ring,” Ruelas said.

“I’m pretty sure he wasn’t thinking what a good friend I am when the bell rang. He was thinking only of knocking me out.”

Ruelas nailed Alonso with a stinging combination just 30 seconds into the fight and knocked him down.

Alonso got slowly to his feet and walked straight ahead, smack into a perfect left hook.

He went down like a chain-sawed tree and referee Chuck Hassett immediately halted the fight.

It was Ruelas’ 16th knockout.

“When he fell like that, I felt bad,” Ruelas said. “But I also know in this game that it could have been me on that floor.”

Not likely. Not Tuesday night.

In a preliminary fight, middleweight Joey DeGrandis of Boston, now fighting out of the Ten Goose gym in Van Nuys, knocked out Rick Jones of Ontario with a crushing left hook at 2:28 of the third round in a scheduled four-rounder.

DeGrandis, 171, pounded Jones, 168 3/4, with heavy body punches for the first two rounds and then, midway into the third, came over the top of Jones’ lowered gloves and battered Jones around the ring.

After a solid combination, DeGrandis, a two-time New England Golden Gloves champion, crashed a left hook against Jones’ jaw and Jones fell heavily on his back.

Referee Larry Rosadilla counted to eight and then stopped the fight with Jones still on the mat.

DeGrandis is 2-0. The bout was the first for Jones, 32, who did not fight as an amateur and made his professional debut against DeGrandis.

In another preliminary bout, Larry Loy, 128 1/2, of Van Nuys, ran his record to 3-0 with a unanimous four-round decision over Charles Hawkins (6-4-1) of Phoenix.

Loy, 19, knocked Hawkins, 130, down in the first round and hurt him badly later in the same round.