Ruelas Ready to Shed Sad Shadow

This is a strange and possibly wonderful time for Gabriel Ruelas, who used to say he never expected to fight, or live, this long.

At 27, preparing for another--perhaps final?--shot at major billing on a major card for a major title, Ruelas is neither up-and-coming nor old-and-washed-up, but wandering somewhere in between.

Mature, experienced, and heading . . . where?

Ruelas himself, sprawled on an outdoor couch after a sumptuous and spicy post-training dinner recently, acknowledged that the rest of his career hinges on his

performance on the Lennox Lewis-Andrew Golota undercard Oct. 4, when Ruelas fights Arturo Gatti, the International Boxing Federation’s junior-lightweight champion, in Atlantic City, N.J.

“This fight is my career, it’s my life,” said Ruelas, who has a 44-3 record with 28 knockouts. “I love boxing--I want to stay in it for three more years. But I don’t want to stay in it without being a champion. I don’t. There’s no way I’ll stay in it.

“I know more than anybody else how big this fight really is. There is no way I can let it get away.”

It has been 20 years since he and brother Rafael’s impoverished days in Jalisco, Mexico; four years since his first, losing, title shot against Azumah Nelson; three years since he thundered over Jesse James Leija for the World Boxing Council title; two years since Jimmy Garcia died of injuries suffered in the ring at Ruelas’ hands; 27 months since he lost the title to Nelson in a bizarre and weakened performance.

Since the loss to Nelson in December 1995, Ruelas has fought and won three times in the kind of dull, 10-round afterthoughts that drive him to boredom.

So, this matchup against the tough but hittable Gatti is not a comeback for Gabriel Ruelas, but rather the continuation of a fitful career, the latest dramatic moment in a life full of them.

Garcia’s death still casts a shadow over Ruelas. How could it not? But Ruelas and his longtime trainer, Joe Goossen, say now that the fighter has never been haunted by the tragedy, and that the loss to Nelson seven months later was more the result of a sick stomach--and an unwillingness to postpone the fight--than ghosts in the head.

And, watching his fighter throw tight rights and hard left hooks against battle-tested veteran Goyo Vargas in sparring, Goossen said that anybody who has written Ruelas off as a shot boxer is misreading the moment.

“I really don’t feel that the clock is running out on Gabriel,” Goossen said. “I feel the clock is just starting on his second time around. It’s not a comeback. It’s just a second time around.

“I really feel Gabriel . . . his best years could be the next three or four.”

It has been well documented that of the brother-fighters, the younger, Rafael, who recently married, has always been the more stable, the better organized. Gabriel is famous for his spending sprees, his unscripted, carefree outlook.

But his wife, Leslie, is pregnant with their second child and Gabriel Ruelas suddenly is facing the rest of his life.

“I would say, above all right now, Gabe’s come to the realization that he’s 27 years old, he’s got a wife, a kid and one on the way, a beautiful home, a couple cars,” Goossen said. “He knows it’s back to business.

“I think whatever emotions he had about the Garcia thing, I think he has laid that to rest. And I think he paid the price for letting that linger in his mind too long. I think it’s behind him. I think it has to be.

“He’s a young 27. And the longer I’m around this game, the more I’m convinced that fighters don’t really reach their peak until they’re getting close to 30, even lighter weight fighters.

“You can look at Azumah Nelson’s career for that, winning big fights late into his 30s . . . or even Evander Holyfield. Or George Foreman.”

Ruelas, for his part, looks at Gatti and the situation, and sees friendly reminders of his last great fight--the 12-round demolition of Leija on Sept. 17, 1994.

“I think [Gatti is] the strongest champion right now [at 130 pounds],” Ruelas said. “But he’s a fighter who just has everything there for me to take. Just like Leija: He was undefeated, people were talking about him for pound for pound.

“The circumstances right now are very similar to the first time around: I’m getting the title shot with this guy that people say is a great champion, my wife’s pregnant . . . due day’s around the fight, like the first fight.

“Everything just kind of fits in. I did it then and I’ll do it better now because of what I’ve been through. I’ve been through the wars.”

GATTI, THEN GENARO?

Should he get past Gatti and win the IBF belt, Ruelas suggests he would focus on a long-anticipated showdown with WBC champion Genaro Hernandez, a local rival who took the title from Nelson that Nelson had just taken from Ruelas.

“Seems like people have always talked about me fighting Genaro,” Ruelas said. “I like Genaro, he’s a good person. But that’s the fight I’ve always thought would happen.”

Rafael Ruelas, who lost his IBF title to Oscar De La Hoya on the same night Gabriel beat Garcia, also is looking for another title shot, but is in a long line to try to land the winner of the Oct. 25 WBC 140-pound title matchup between Julio Cesar Chavez and Miguel Angel Gonzalez in Mexico City.

QUICK JABS

The Pernell Whitaker camp has turned up the heat in its campaign for a rematch against De La Hoya, promoter Dino Duva challenging him to “stop conning the public and make the fight.”

Pointing to the pay-per-view numbers registered by De La Hoya’s victory over Hector Camacho last Saturday--about 620,000 buys for a $26-million gross, well below promoter Bob Arum’s dream of more than a million buys, and the 830,000 that bought De La Hoya-Whitaker last April--Duva said the public won’t buy De La Hoya fights against lesser competition.

“If you want to prove you’re the best, stop ducking behind phony opponents and phony promotions,” Duva said. “Money can’t be used as an excuse for not making this rematch. We’re willing to take less than we took for the first fight.”

Whitaker fights Oct. 17 at the Foxwoods Resort in Ledyard, Conn., on HBO against Andrei Pestriav, on the undercard of IBF welterweight champion Ike Quartey’s title bout against Jose Luis Lopez.

Arum said although De La Hoya plans to fight Whitaker at some point in 1998, the camp wants to let events sort themselves out before committing to anything beyond his next two fights, Dec. 6 against Wilfredo Rivera and March 1, possibly in Japan, against Patrick Charpentier.

Arum added that Terry Norris was the likely next foe, with Julio Cesar Chavez and Whitaker as outside possibilities.

“There’s no reason to pin ourselves down now,” Arum said. “The easiest fight, least dangerous fight is Whitaker. But I don’t know if that’s the most lucrative.”

Arum conceded that De La Hoya’s strong performance against the left-handed Camacho increased the chances of a Whitaker rematch, since some De La Hoya advisors fear another awkward fight with the left-handed Whitaker.

Quartey, meanwhile, has a campaign of his own going, to get a bout with Whitaker. On a conference call this week, Quartey’s first words were, “Will Pernell be ready for me after this fight?”

Golota, disqualified in his last two fights for low blows, despite outpunching Riddick Bowe, is training with a heavy bag equipped with a belt-line. He is fined $1 every time he wanders below the belt, said trainer Lou Duva, who added that he has charged Golota $12 so far. Duva insists that Golota will be neither tentative nor foul-prone against Lewis.

“We’re still going for the body,” Duva said. “We’re just trying to get him an area, that’s all. All I’m really doing is lifting up his elbows, that’s all. So he can punch to the body. He was dropping his hands, and that’s when he had the tendency to hit low.”

Think L.A. trainer Freddie Roach’s patience will be tested? He has added IBF heavyweight champion Michael Moorer, one of the moodiest fighters, to a stable that includes the rambunctious James Toney. Moorer broke from Teddy Atlas a few months ago, after a tumultuous--and title-winning--association. “I’ll miss Teddy as a person, I think, more than as a boxer,” Moorer said.

Two days after walking out of a deal to fight Hasim Rahman, and with the deadline to complete a deal only hours away, Foreman agreed Friday to fight Shannon Briggs on an HBO-televised show Nov. 22 at the Foxwoods Resort. According to sources close to the deal, Foreman, who considers the athletic Briggs a lighter touch, will get $5 million, and the undercard will include Fernando Vargas and David Reid.

What spurred Foreman to reconsider a November bout? As the negotiations bogged down, Roy Jones Jr., the WBC light-heavyweight champion eager to prove himself against heavyweights, made a surprising bid to upstage the 48-year-old heavyweight by offering to fight Rahman in Foreman’s stead.

Jones’ sudden availability could land him a spot on a possible Super Bowl week card at Foxwoods against a smaller heavyweight. Rahman now apparently will move to a Nov. 1 HBO date against Obed Sullivan.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Calendar

* Friday--Nick Martinez vs. Anthony Brown, middleweights; Pedro Pena vs. Ivan Cazares, super-flyweights; Irvine Marriott, 7:30 p.m.