Win-Win? Not for Brothers

One super middleweight brother is still undefeated. The other ... not so much.

Minutes after watching his younger brother Enrique Ornelas get careless and then get knocked out, Librado Andrade seemingly took the La Habra family’s frustration out on Vitali Kopytko, knocking him out in 27 seconds of the second round and thrilling an estimated crowd of 1,000 at the Grand Olympic Auditorium on Thursday night.

“I just wanted to stay focused,” said Andrade, who improved to 20-0 with 14 knockouts. “He just made a mistake. I can’t be in there with him and he can’t be in there with me.

“My brother has problems with somebody who can hit.”

Through the first eight rounds, Ornelas (19-1) was doing the hitting, dropping Christian Cruz (9-1-1, 7) three times, in the fourth, sixth and eight rounds. Ornelas was leading, 79-70, on two scorecards and, 80-69, on the third when he walked into a straight right from Cruz.

Ornelas was dazed enough that he did not try to wrap up Cruz, who landed another right haymaker. Ornelas turned to referee Raul Caiz Jr. in protest. But with his hands down and his eyes focused elsewhere, Cruz took advantage and landed another right, prompting Caiz to stop the fight at 2:38 of the ninth round.

“Sometimes I do play like I’m hurt,” Cruz said, “just to draw them in.”

Kopytko (24-7) was hurt from the start, going down in the first round after a flurry of Andrade punches to the face.

“I want to move up,” said Andrade, the No. 5-ranked 168-pounder by the World Boxing Organization. “I want a world title shot.”

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Three years after marrying Millie Coretjer, and nearly two weeks after being stopped for the first time in his professional career, Oscar De La Hoya is about to take his honeymoon, said Golden Boy Promotions’ Richard Schaefer. De La Hoya, knocked out by Bernard Hopkins on Sept. 18, will return from Europe before determining his boxing future and hopes to be at the Erik Morales-Marco Antonio Barrera fight on Nov. 27 in Las Vegas.