Ruelas Wins Single-Handedly

No ghosts this time.

Still, Gabriel Ruelas had his mind on an opponent other than the one in the ring while winning a 10-round unanimous decision over James Crayton in a lightweight main event before a crowd of 891 Friday night at Fantasy Springs Casino.

Ruelas (44-3), former World Boxing Council super-featherweight champion from Sylmar, was scheduled to fight former International Boxing Federation champion Troy Dorsey at Indio before Dorsey fell ill with flu.

He settled for Crayton (20-7), who spent much of the evening dancing away from Ruelas while landing ineffective left jabs.

Ruelas, who scored most of his blows with uppercuts and body blows, might have done more damage had he not suffered a sprained left thumb in the first round.

Crayton closed with a flurry that included a hard combination to Ruelas’ head in the final 10 seconds. But for the most part, his punches did little to ebb Ruelas’ aggression.

In a decision greeted with a share of boos, two judges scored the fight, 96-94. A third favored Ruelas, 97-93.

“Were there boos?” Ruelas asked. “I didn’t hear any.”

Perhaps Ruelas, ranked No. 2 by the WBC, was just happy to have a victory while continuing his comeback.

Fifteen months ago, he lost his title to Azumah Nelson by virtue of a sixth-round knockout in the same outdoor arena. After the fight, Ruelas remarked that he had envisioned the ghost of Jimmy Garcia, the fighter who died as a result of Ruelas’ blows during a fight in Las Vegas nearly two years ago.

Ruelas said he has put Garcia’s death behind him. But still, he was distracted.

“To tell you the truth, my mind was on Troy Dorsey,” Ruelas said. “I wanted to fight him, and when I heard he pulled out I was disappointed.”

Then there was his thumb.

Ruelas, his left hand submerged in ice after the fight, said he felt a twinge of pain sometime in the opening round. He continued to fight while concealing the injury from his trainer, Joe Goossen.

“I didn’t know about it until the fifth round,” Goossen said. “But I could tell something was wrong because he stopped throwing that left hook with authority.

“I don’t know what the crowd was booing about. [Crayton] ran all night. I could see if he was a boxer and that was his strategy, but he just ran.”

Crayton claimed he won the fight and that Ruelas used the injury as an excuse.

“The guy threw everything at me but the kitchen sink and he had nothing left,” Crayton said. “I got robbed. If it had gone a couple more rounds, I would have had a knockout.”

Ruelas never appeared to hurt Crayton. Nor was it obvious that he had injured his hand.

Ruelas’ most effective punch might have been a hard right near the end of the fourth round. By that time, Crayton was bleeding slightly from the nose.

Ruelas theorized things might have gone differently had he not hurt his hand.

“For I second, I panicked,” he said. “But then I just thought, ‘I’ll just take it 10 rounds.’ I guess that’s where my experience comes in.”

In other bouts, Mia “The Knockout” St. John of Woodland Hills scored a first-round knockout of Anjelica Villan of El Paso, Texas, in a four-round women’s featherweight bout.

Heavyweight Lance Whitaker of Granada Hills had his bout postponed until Feb. 25 at the Long Beach Pyramid when Orlando LaValle came down with flu.