Ruelas Brothers Use Short and Long of It for a Sweep

At first, it was difficult to tell fighters Rafael Ruelas and Narcizo Valenzuela apart. Both wore white trunks and white shoes and closely cropped hair.

But in the second round--and each subsequent round--of Tuesday night’s fight at the Country Club in Reseda, it became very easy to differentiate: Valenzuela was the one taking the steady battering that ended only at the bell of the 10th and final round as Ruelas posted a unanimous decision.

The only knockdown of the bout came in the 10th when Valenzuela finally went down after a four-punch combination from Ruelas. But he rose quickly and finished the one-sided fight.

It was not, however, the most lopsided fight of the night.

That honor went to brother Gabriel Ruelas, who demolished another former Mexican featherweight champion, Eduardo Fili Montoya of Mexicali, with a left uppercut, knocking Montoya out at 2:24 of the first round of a scheduled 10-round bout, also in the junior lightweight division.

But if Gabriel’s victory was quicker, it was no more dramatic than that of his younger brother (by 10 months), as Rafael, 19, relentlessly mauled the tough Valenzuela.

The victories left the brothers, who have trained at the Ten Goose Boxing Club in Van Nuys for nearly a decade, with a combined 50-1 record.

Rafael, who won the North American Boxing Federation featherweight title earlier this year with a third-round knockout of former world champion Stevie Cruz, is 27-0. Valenzuela is 33-8-1.

Gabriel is 23-1. His victim, Montoya, is 16-7-1.

In the first bout, Gabriel backed Montoya into a neutral corner in the final minute of the first round and dropped a quick right hand against the side of Montoya’s head, hurting him.

A second later, Ruelas, 130, followed with a short left uppercut that caught Montoya, 129 1/2, flush on the chin. Montoya dropped in his tracks and struggled to his feet at the count of nine, but his eyes were glazed and referee Vince Delgado halted the fight.