Van Horn Batters Amarillas in Unanimous Decision

One had a hunch former two-time world champion Darrin Van Horn had not attached too much significance to his fight against Martin Amarillas at the Country Club in Reseda on Friday night when, 20 minutes after he had scored a unanimous decision over Amarillas, he kept referring to his opponent as Ruben.

“Tonight, that Ruben showed he was a tough fighter,” Van Horn said. “His name was Ruben, wasn’t it?”

What’s in a name? Nothing.

What was in Amarillas’ face most of the night, however, was Van Horn’s left hand. When the left wasn’t in Amarillas’ face, it was because the space was already occupied by Van Horn’s right hand.

Amarillas had his moments, rocking Van Horn in three rounds with heavy left hooks and an occasional right, but Van Horn dominated. Two judges scored it 97-93 and a third had it 96-95.

Van Horn (49-3), of Lexington, Ky., was fighting for only the second time since being knocked out in January by Iran Barkley in a fight for the International Boxing Federation super-middleweight (168-pound limit) championship. Against the 175-pound Amarillas, a member of Mexico’s 1988 Olympic team now living in Pico Rivera, Van Horn delivered punches that were crisp but not overpowering. There were no knockdowns, but a slicing right in the sixth opened a gash over the left eye of Amarillas (10-8) that required four stitches.

Van Horn said his heart just wasn’t in it.

“It’s like a track star running in the Olympics and then suddenly finding himself running on a high school track,” said Van Horn, who earned $15,000 for the bout. He has earned more than $1 million in his eight-year pro career that began shortly after his 16th birthday.

But with a possible rematch against Barkley early next year, Van Horn and his father-trainer-manager G.L. Van Horn said the fight was a necessary part of his comeback bid. “He’s a fighter,” the elder Van Horn said of his son. “And so he fights. This is what he must do. When he fights often, the tools stay sharp. When he doesn’t, he gets into trouble in the ring.”

Van Horn agreed. Reluctantly.

“It was like a good gym workout, and I need that,” he said. “But it’s so hard for me to get interested in fights like this. It plays hard on your psyche. It was definitely a step down in my career, but I got some good work out of it and hopefully it will help me.”

It did Amarillas no good.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “He never hurt me, but in the middle of the fight I felt tired and I stopped punching. Then I got cut and that bothered me too. I just stopped fighting.”

In an earlier bout, welterweight Engels Pedroza of Venezuela, now living in Las Vegas, improved to 37-4 with 36 knockouts by stopping Mario Lopez (9-9-3) of Phoenix at 1 minute 42 seconds of the second round.

In a scheduled four-round bout, middleweight P.J. Goossen of North Hollywood knocked out Fernando Ramos of Bakersfield with the first punch he threw, a crushing right that landed flush on Ramos’ jaw 38 seconds into the first round. Goossen, 153, is 5-0 with four knockouts. Ramos, 156, is 0-3.