Ruelas Posts KO; Plans to Step Up to Lightweight

Friday night’s fights at the Country Club in Reseda were broadcast by Telemundo, which Fernando Teran of Mexico City apparently believes is Spanish for “Tell Me When It’s Over.”

Teran lasted less than three minutes against the heavy hands of skinny Rafael Ruelas of Arleta, hitting the canvas three times in the first round and bowing out after just 2 minutes 45 seconds.

It was the 26th win for the unbeaten Ruelas and the 22nd knockout that those heavy hands have produced.

Ruelas, 20, won the North American Boxing Federation featherweight championship in March by demolishing former world champion Stevie Cruz in three rounds in Las Vegas. And he could have been excused for having a slight letdown in the small-time surroundings of the Country Club against an opponent who had lost four of his past five fights.

Instead, Ruelas began landing thudding, clean, powerful punches against Teran from the opening bell. A left uppercut dropped Teran hard at 1:30 and a combination put him down again 20 seconds later. When a grazing right high on the head sent Teran tumbling to the mat for a third time, referee James Jen-Kin halted the bout.

Teran, who weighed 129, is 28-10.

Later, in a cramped locker room, Ruelas said the bout against Cruz on March 31 might have been his last as a featherweight. He struggled to make the 126-pound limit for that bout and weighed 129 Friday night. At 5-foot-11, his rapidly growing body seems unable to train off any more excess weight.

And so, Ruelas and trainer Joe Goossen announced, bring on Pernell Whittaker, the undisputed 135-pound (lightweight) champion, a fighter considered by many experts to be among the best, pound for pound, in the world.

“Whittaker doesn’t have my power,” Ruelas said. “He might be faster, but I know I can walk right through him and let my hands go. And when I do that, Whittaker will fall just like these other guys.

“I know people will say I’m talking over my head because of what I did to Cruz, but that’s not it at all. It’s just that I know what my power can do.”

Goossen was just as emphatic.

“There’s only one guy at 135 pounds, and I’d put Rafael in with him tomorrow,” Goossen said. “Rafael has the power to handle any lightweight, including Pernell Whittaker.”

That day might be far off. In the meantime, Ruelas says he’s just glad to be done with the struggle of making 126 pounds. A good meal was planned, he said, the first in a long time.

“I just can’t do it anymore,” he said. “I’m just 20. What am I supposed to do, stop growing?”

In an earlier fight that featured more head butts than clean punches, Aaron Lopez, 129, of San Antonio, won a split decision over Vicente Gonzales, 126, of Los Angeles in a 12-round bout.

Lopez (24-7-2) was cut in the fourth and eighth rounds by the crashing head of Gonzales (13-12-2) but got in more than a few of his own head butts.