BOXING / TIM KAWAKAMI : Bad Start Makes His Victory Sweeter

Rafael Ruelas had to be knocked down twice to lift himself higher.

How low was he? Last Saturday at the Forum, in Ruelas’ first world championship fight, Freddie Pendleton seemed ready to back up every one of his taunts in the first 90 seconds of the bout.

An overhand right from Pendleton sent Ruelas down early in the first round. A harder left uppercut sent Ruelas down again, almost ending it.

Has there ever been a challenger in a world title fight who won after suffering two knockdowns?

Pendleton, who had peppered Ruelas and his handlers for months with taunts and insults, was beaming, Ruelas was reeling and the heavily pro-Ruelas crowd was groaning.

It would not last.

“Usually when there’s an early knockdown, the person who gets knocked down gets scared and starts just trying to survive,” Ruelas said this week from his Sylmar home. “He stops trying to win.

“I got knocked down, and I kept trying to win. I’ve been pursuing this goal for so long--really, 10 years--that I wasn’t going to quit it for anything.

“Sometimes things may not start out the way you want, but that shouldn’t stop you from going after what you want.”

Ruelas weathered the terrible start--two of the three judges gave Pendleton the first round, 10-7--and took over the fight with single-minded relentlessness.

“At the end of the second round, I saw despair on Pendleton’s face,” said Ruelas’ trainer, Joe Goossen. “He knew he was in for a long night. I suspect that when Rafael got up from those two knockdowns and came on strong in the second, Pendleton knew in his mind, ‘Wow, I’m in for a long one.’ ”

Pendleton stuck his tongue out at Ruelas throughout the fight, and Ruelas said he got inspiration from that.

“It was a sign that he had gotten hit hard,” Ruelas said. “He was getting tired, getting frustrated, and I told myself to step it up each time he did that.”

About 45 minutes after suffering his second knockdown, Ruelas had exactly what he wanted: a unanimous decision, giving him the International Boxing Federation lightweight title.

It took 11-plus rounds of stalking the veteran Pendleton, 11-plus rounds of wading through Pendleton’s sharp punches to deliver scores of heavy body shots, 11-plus rounds of refusing to drop and accept defeat.

“I’m sure he probably thought I’d be staying away from him after the knockdowns,” Ruelas said, “backing away, using my reach. He wasn’t expecting it when I went back at him.”

When it was over, Ruelas was a champion--only the second current L.A.-area world champion, along with Genaro Hernandez, the World Boxing Assn. junior-lightweight champion--and a rising star in a sport that needs more of them.

“This fight came at the right time,” Goossen said. “He’s 22 years old, it’s the exact right time for him.”

How high has Ruelas climbed with that down-and-not-out victory?

“My next fight, my next defense, people will remember how I won the championship, and how I came back from being down and how it was won against a guy who kept talking,” Ruelas said.

“It’s great especially coming back from adversity, in front of the hometown fans, and because of all the things he had been saying, which were offensive to a lot of the Hispanic people in the crowd.”

“I think this fight will get people to take notice,” Goossen said. “He’s a star. But now he just needs that dream matchup to really get going.”

Rafael’s older brother, Gabriel, a top contender as a junior-lightweight, also figures into Goossen’s mix.

Ruelas talks of defending his title as long as he feels comfortable at 135, then going after the 140-pound title, then through the welterweight division and finally ending up as a middleweight.

“My goal was to win a championship,” Ruelas said. “But I still have other goals, and I will get them one by one.”

Next up for Ruelas is probably a title defense in May at Las Vegas, possibly on the same card as a Oscar De La Hoya-Jorge Paez fight.