Rusty Lopez Leaves Sandoval Bloodied and Beaten

Hector Lopez, who only recently returned to civilian life after a 2 1/2-year stay in prison, undoubtedly has had many fights like Saturday night’s.

But after this one, he got to walk out onto the street and go home.

Lopez, who says he knocked out at least one heavyweight during his incarceration, found 139-pound Andres Sandoval to be a pushover in a scheduled 10-round super lightweight bout at the Reseda Country Club.

Lopez, 21-1 with nine knockouts, began slicing up Sandoval (40-11-1) from the start, cutting the challenger from Ensenada, Mexico, over both eyes by the second round, closing his right eye by the fourth and leaving the hard-punching Sandoval (36 knockouts in 40 wins) bleeding from above both eyes, the nose and the mouth after the fifth.

At that point, Sandoval’s trainer, Abel Sanchez, had seen enough and halted the fight.

As overpowering as the performance was, Lopez, of Glendale, said he will get better.

“The rustiness is going away, but it’s not gone yet,” said Lopez, the 1984 Olympic featherweight silver medalist for Mexico. “I’m at 65 or 70% now, but I’ll be 85 or 90% for my next fight.”

The beating was one-sided, with Lopez dodging virtually all of Sandoval’s heavy right-hand punches. In the fourth, Lopez threw a left uppercut that caught Sandoval in the stomach, and Sandoval let out a gasp.

It was, according to Lopez, the last gasp.

“That left hand late in the fourth round just drained him,” Lopez said.

In the second bout of the night, middleweight Joey DeGrandis outlasted tough John Armijo of Huntington Beach. The win earned DeGrandis a berth in a March 17 fight in his hometown of Boston, where he will meet top-10 middleweight contender Brett Lally.

DeGrandis, now fighting for the Ten Goose Boxing Club of Van Nuys, ripped Armijo mercilessly in the first four rounds of the eight-round bout, leaving Armijo--a lifeguard for Los Angeles County--bruised and breathing heavily.

But Armijo came back in the closing rounds, rocking DeGrandis in the seventh with sweeping lefts and rights.

All three judges scored the bout, 77-75, for DeGrandis (12-2). Armijo is 12-3-1. Both weighed 159 pounds.

“He was strong and he kept coming, but I hit him all night,” DeGrandis said. “He was standing in the way of my return to Boston against Brett Lally. I couldn’t let that happen.”