BOXING / TIM KAWAKAMI : Gabriel Ruelas Awaits Next Chance

One hundred thirty thousand in the stands. Azumah Nelson in the ring. Julio Cesar Chavez in the dressing room, preparing for his featured fight.

Feb. 20, 1993, still is burned into Gabriel Ruelas’ mind as the night he went as high up the mountain as he could, then fell back when he lost a decision to then-champion Nelson.

The Nelson fight in Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium was Ruelas’ entry into boxing’s championship level. His opponent was considered one of boxing’s greatest titleholders.

Ruelas was 21. Could anything ever make him feel like that again?

Mostly, no.

Ruelas, the Sylmar resident who retained his No. 1 ranking in the World Boxing Council’s super-featherweight division after losing to Nelson, has spent the last year-plus waiting for his next taste of the big time.

And the letdown from Mexico City has been obvious. Ruelas, who suffered the second loss of his career in the Nelson fight, has hit the canvas in each of his last two tuneup victories against journeymen fighters.

Said Ruelas the other day: “In every other fight I had after I fought Nelson, I would train right and everything, but mentally it just wasn’t there--that excitement of coming into the ring.

“At times I was like, ‘I’m No. 1, what am I going to win with this fight? They want me to be active, I stay in the gym all the time. Why should I stay in the gym just to be active?

“Yeah, people were watching me fight and everything, but I didn’t have that same feeling I had with Nelson. And now it’s back again.”

On Sept. 17 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Ruelas once again will be on a Chavez undercard and once again get a shot at the WBC title. Only this time, the champion is Jesse James Leija, who fought Nelson to a draw in September of 1993, then decisively beat Nelson, who had been boxing’s longest-running champion, last May.

While the Leija-Nelson two-fight series was running its course, Ruelas (38-2, 21 knockouts) waited his turn with growing impatience.

“When they announced that he was fighting Leija, my brother changed,” said Rafael Ruelas, winner of the International Boxing Federation’s lightweight title last February.

“His whole attitude was back into boxing. He’s been waiting for a long time. It was all frustrating for him. It wasn’t the right frame of mind to fight in.”

Although Gabriel Ruelas scored a sharp fifth-round knockout of Ben Lopez at the Forum a year ago, he has been in a lull since.

Against Eduardo Jacques on Jan. 21, Ruelas won a seventh-round technical knockout.

Against Raul Hernandez in February--one year after losing to Nelson--Ruelas was knocked down in the early going but quickly recovered to win another seventh-round TKO.

Then, against light-hitting Paris Alexander in May, Ruelas was knocked down in the second round before rallying for a seventh-round knockout.

“(The knockdowns) don’t bother me at all,” Ruelas said. “I think if I would have gotten hurt or something, it would have bothered me a little bit. But going into them, I would tell Joe before the fights I was just not into them.

“I’d been No. 1 for two years, and it’s frustrating not to fight for the title. You see all those other guys fighting for the titles all the time. Sometimes I think I’d have been better off being No. 9 or No. 10 in the world.”

Joe Goossen, who trains the Ruelas brothers, says he doesn’t agree with the notion held by some that Rafael is the more mentally disciplined and determined fighter.

“Rafael probably doesn’t express his lack of motivation mentally toward what you would call a tuneup--where Gabriel will express it,” Goossen said.

“For both of them, it’s sort of ‘Been there, done that.’ You only want the big stuff now. After you fight Azumah in front of 130,000, its hard to go back and fight so-and-so at the Olympic Auditorium for $5,000 or $10,000. It’s just not the same.”

Leija is a solid Las Vegas betting favorite. That’s because, Goossen says, Leija was given two chances to beat Nelson where Ruelas only had one shot at the veteran champion.

“The lucky thing for Leija was that he got to have a 24-round fight with Nelson,” Goossen said. “We only got to have 12. That’s where he, I think, has an advantage over us. He got those extra rounds of championship experience in. Had we had the same opportunity, we would’ve done the same thing.”

Ruelas looks back on the Nelson fight as a lesson learned. He went in nervous, he acknowledges, and then, for reasons he cannot quite explain, he never quite got going against Nelson, although he never was in danger of being knocked out.

His brother says that Gabriel looks calmer during workouts this time, more confident.

“There were just things running in my head before Nelson,” Gabriel Ruelas said. “I don’t know why I was worried--I had trained so hard for so long. It was like, ‘I better not start too fast, it’s 12 rounds, I better time myself right. Start slow and then pick it up later.’

“I really didn’t need to do that. And even me not doing that, I was so close. And I didn’t give it my best. In a way, I saw what I could do. It was just inexperience. But this time I already know.”

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Said Rafael Ruelas, when asked about Leija’s status as a favorite against Gabriel:

“I think Leija’s a good fighter, but a lot of people think he’s a great fighter because of his last fight,” Rafael said. “They’re just looking at his last fight with Azumah Nelson.

“But you have to take in consideration that by then, Azumah was pretty much on the way out. Leija fought a smart fight. But by no means is he a killer or a heavy puncher.

“He’s a good fighter, but I still think my brother’s better.”

Boxing Notes

World Boxing Assn. junior-lightweight champion Genaro Hernandez, who has been idle since the end of January because of hand surgery and boxing politics, says he has been told that his mandatory defense against Colombia’s Jimmy Garcia probably will take place in early October.

With Top Rank, Inc., ready to delay the showdown between Oscar De La Hoya and Rafael Ruelas beyond the planned early 1995 date in hopes of building each fighter’s profile, De La Hoya’s camp is looking in another direction. The De La Hoya camp has tossed aside thoughts of going on a world tour this year and has given promoter Bob Arum a list of three fighters De La Hoya would like to fight in 1995: Hernandez, who has been bypassed several times by De La Hoya; International Boxing Federation junior-lightweight champion John John Molina, and former World Boxing Council 130-pound champion Azumah Nelson. Each would presumably have to come up to 135, the weight at which De La Hoya is the World Boxing Organization champion.

De La Hoya, comfortable after rising from the junior-lightweight division, now is planning to finish 1994 with two 10-round nontitle bouts: one in New York and one for charity at the Grand Olympic Auditorium. Ruelas, meanwhile, is scheduled to defend his IBF lightweight title against Billy Shear in Hong Kong in October.

Though many in the fight world were impressed by De La Hoya’s second-round knockout of Jorge Paez last month, Hernandez is not so sure, especially because it did not appear that De La Hoya ever hit Paez completely clean. “He was no different at the heavier weight,” Hernandez said of De La Hoya. “A lot of people say Paez threw the fight. Paez, I think, could have gotten up and should have gotten up. I’m pretty sure he’s taken harder hits than that.”

WBC welterweight champion Pernell Whitaker had some sharp words this week when asked about his Oct. 1 rematch with New York-based Buddy McGirt, to be televised by HBO from Whitaker’s hometown of Norfolk, Va. After the loss last March, McGirt blamed it on a sore left arm and that explanation was echoed by much of the New York media.

“If you have any excuses for him this time, please let me know,” said Whitaker, who only reluctantly agreed to take the rematch. “Is there anything hurting on him now? No? So then we won’t have any more excuses for him if he loses. This guy’s so soft and gentle, you made so many excuses for him on every little thing that hurts on him.” Whitaker said the only two fighters he is interested in fighting are Julio Cesar Chavez and Terry Norris.

If you’re Lennox Lewis and you watched the Riddick Bowe-Buster Mathis Jr. no-contest debacle last weekend, you probably want to fight the obviously rusty and always controversial Bowe as soon as possible. But, with Lewis set for a Sept. 24 WBC heavyweight title defense against Oliver McCall in London--where the undercard is expected to have young heavyweights Larry Donald and Andrew Golota in fights against veterans--and the Las Vegas fight schedule filled up, March is a much more likely time for Bowe-Lewis.