Looks Are Deceiving : Ruelas Brothers Aren’t That Impressive Until They Get Into Ring

The dog just bit your ankle, you’ve just met your daughter’s new boyfriend and counted five earrings even before you got to the ones in his nose , you haven’t seen your wife since she muttered “bachelorette party” and headed for the door and you’re in a rather foul mood.

And looking for a fight.

You select as a victim Gabriel Ruelas, a boyish-looking 20-year-old who stands 5-feet-7 and weighs 130 pounds.

Big mistake. Because in less time than it takes you to scream “Help!” Gabriel Ruelas probably will knock you out with a left hook.

Or perhaps you pick his younger brother. At 135 pounds and 5-feet-11, Rafael Ruelas, 19, makes skinny people look like hogs. You figure you will pick this kid up around the waist and turn him into a javelin.

Rafael Ruelas probably would knock you out with his right hand.

That is what these brothers do for a living. And by most accounts, it is about to become a very nice living.

The soft-speaking Ruelas brothers of Arleta have combined for a impressive 48-1 record and 34 knockouts. The lone defeat is Gabriel’s.

And it should carry an asterisk.

Early in 1990, the lightweight with a 21-0 record was fighting veteran Jeff Franklin in Las Vegas with a stress fracture of a bone in his right elbow. It hurt, but Ruelas did not tell anyone how much. And in the seventh round of a fight he was winning, Ruelas grimaced and was forced to withdraw.

The bone had snapped when Franklin, who knew of the injury, wrenched the elbow violently during a clinch.

In two operations six metal screws were inserted into the bones in his elbow--three screws broke shortly after the first operation--and there was a bone graft from his hip. More than a year later, on June 1, Gabriel came back, winning a 10-round decision over Pedro Mendoza of Mexico in Palm Springs.

His right elbow healed at a permanent angle, and Gabriel is unable to straighten it. But after pounding Mendoza with more than 100 heavy right-handed blows, Ruelas knew it would not be a problem.

“It felt better than ever,” he said.

Rafael Ruelas, younger than his brother by 10 months, has had a stroll. He has a 26-0 record with 22 knockouts, and earlier this year he won the North American Boxing Federation featherweight title by knocking out former world champion Stevie Cruz. Rafael put Cruz down three times in the first round, then knocked him out cold in the third.

Rafael has been criticized for not having--or not using--a solid jab to set up his right hand. But seldom has he needed one. Despite his slight frame, Rafael Ruelas has heavy hands.

In April, at the Ten Goose Boxing Club gym in Van Nuys, Rafael capped a furious workout with a right hand to the protective leather headgear of his sparring partner.

Moments later, the sparring partner was asked if Ruelas was a hard puncher.

“Is my car here?” he responded, his eyes glassy.

“He drove me here,” the sparring partner shouted, pointing at an empty aluminum folding chair where his trainer had been sitting minutes earlier.

Big punches lead to big paydays, and the Ruelas brothers have been earning five-digit checks for their recent fights. And the big money--as big as the smaller men can earn in heavyweight-dominated boxing--is close.

Dan Goossen, president of Ten Goose Boxing and their manager, said negotiations are under way for title fights in November.

Possible bouts include Rafael going against undisputed lightweight champion Pernell Whitaker. Gabriel could fight Joey Gamache of New York for the vacant World Boxing Assn. junior lightweight title or Tony Lopez of Sacramento, the International Boxing Federation junior lightweight champion.

First there will be a few more stops at their boxing home, the Country Club in Reseda, a dark--and well, cozy is the best thing you can say about it--1,000-seat nightclub that features a monthly boxing show.

There the Ruelas brothers have developed a following of boxing fans from the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles. Cards featuring them always pack the house. Mr. T is a regular. So is Gene Hackman.

Tuesday night, Rafael fights Narcizo Valenzuela (31-7-1) of Mexico City in one 10-round bout, and Gabriel takes on Eduardo Montoya (16-6-1) of Mexicali, Mexico, in another scheduled 10-rounder.

In boxing, the Ruelas brothers already are a success story, especially if success is measured in terms of how far a person has come.

They grew up in Yerba Buena, high in the jungle-covered mountains in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. Two of 14 children, Gabriel and Rafael spent long, hard hours helping on their parents’ ranch until the family moved to the United States in 1979 when the boys were 7 and 8 years old.

Just how remote was their village?

“Once a week, we would walk two hours to another village because a man there had a small television,” recalled Gabriel. “And he’d charge us pesos to watch ‘The Lone Ranger.’

“That was our only contact with anything outside our village. No radio. No newspapers.”

No plumbing or electricity, either.

“I didn’t see plumbing until I got to California,” Gabriel said. “We didn’t even have an outdoor bathroom, an outhouse. We just went. There were a lot of big rocks to hide behind.”

The brothers’ journey to California in 1979 was, they say, like going to another planet. They claim to have been stunned on their first trip to a drugstore, where endless rows of hair-care products were lined up.

“Blow-dryers,” Gabriel said. “I just couldn’t understand it.”

They also were shocked to learn that not everyone looked exactly like they did.

“The first time we came here was the first time we had ever seen a black person or a person with blond hair,” Gabriel said. “I remember walking with my older brothers, who had been here for a few years, and me and Rafael would just stop on the sidewalk and stare at people. My brothers would have to drag us along the sidewalk, telling us not to stare at people.”

Shyness took over as they tried to fit into a much different world. And they had to overcome that shyness to start in boxing.

At 11 and 12, the brothers worked after school selling candy. The Ten Goose Boxing Club had been started in their neighborhood, and another Ruelas brother, Juan, had boxed briefly at the gym. He told Gabriel to try it.

“He told me not to try it,” Rafael recalled. “He said I was so skinny I’d get hurt for sure. He told me to concentrate on school. And selling candy.”

After weeks of building up courage, Gabriel knocked on the door of the gym. But only after hiding his box of candy in the bushes nearby.

“I was so embarrassed,” Gabriel said. “I was shaking.”

Joe Goossen, the Ten Goose trainer who later went on to train IBF middleweight champion Michael Nunn, answered.

“I want to be a fighter,” chirped the 12-year-old Ruelas.

“I told him to get out,” Joe Goossen said. “He was a little kid.”

“I was scared by then,” Gabriel said. “I just said ‘OK’ and turned to leave. And all of a sudden I started thinking, ‘Geez, I hope no one stole my candy outside.’ Because this wasn’t the best neighborhood in the world, either.”

At that moment, Goossen stopped the kid, told him to come back after school and he’d let him get some exercise.

“There was something I liked about him,” Goossen said. “He had a look in his eyes.”

A few weeks later, skinny Rafael joined up, too.

“I had no idea what I was getting into,” Goossen said. “We were supposed to be training professional fighters, and now I’ve got these little kids hanging around, boxing gloves bigger than their heads.”

Not, however, bigger than their hearts.

“In 15 years of being around fighters and training fighters, I’ve never met one yet who could match either Gabriel or Rafael in courage and guts,” Goossen said. “These kids are one in a million.”

Make that two.