Tale of the Trade

Rafael Ruelas went into training camp last week.

The former International Boxing Federation lightweight champion was holed up in seclusion, away from his family, preparing for the daunting task at hand.

But Ruelas wasn’t pounding his way through sparring partners, getting ready for a fight. He was tearing through books and handouts, charts and reports, getting ready for a test.

He was studying. As in school work.

Ruelas, who is semiretired from the ring and has not fought since August, is moving on with his life.

At 29, he is training to become a licensed personal financial advisor.

Boxer turned broker?

“I just see a need in this industry, especially in boxing, where a lot of guys who made good money are in trouble financially,” said Ruelas, who is working as a trainee for PaineWebber in the company’s downtown offices. “They had some good paydays but didn’t plan properly and now they’re getting hit with taxes, penalties, interest. . . . That’s why I’d read up on things like that when I was training for a fight.”

While Saturday’s welterweight fight at Staples Center between Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley is seen as the biggest pro bout in Los Angeles history, it was slightly more than five years ago that Ruelas was involved in what was then the most eagerly anticipated bout between two L.A. fighters when he faced De La Hoya in Las Vegas.

Some would say that was the night Ruelas’ career began to slow down.

In what was supposed to be a competitive affair between Ruelas, the reigning champion, and the still up-and-coming Golden Boy, De La Hoya crushed Ruelas, taking his title with a vicious second-round knockout on May 6, 1995, at Caesars Palace.

Ruelas lost his next fight, a 12-round decision to unheralded George Scott, five months later and though he won five in a row after that, he was not the same.

A punishing ninth-round technical-knockout loss to Kostya Tszyu on Aug. 15, 1998, ensued and his only fight since then was a lackluster split decision win over Hicklet Lau on Aug. 8, 1999.

Ruelas, who grew up in Sylmar and began fighting professionally in January 1989, has a record of 53-4 with 42 knockouts.

His home office is littered with memorabilia of his career--state, fringe and world title belts, photos, boxing gloves--but they are quickly being overtaken by mementos of his new passion. Books on taxes, financial plans and the like are taking up space in Ruelas’ Studio City home.

That’s fine with Ruelas’ wife of nearly three years, Michelle.

“He’s not as edgy as he was when he’d get close to a fight, that countdown of a month, a week, a few days,” she said. “But he is stressed when he’s studying. It’s very similar in that he needs time to himself, to study, and he misses out on some of the family things. But I’m happy that he’s made that choice, that he’s going after something that he wants and that he’s going to take care of it.”

To those who know him best, it’s no surprise that Ruelas realizes his best boxing days are behind him and he’s going back to school.

He was always the bookworm, the yin to his brother Gabriel’s yang.

Ever since the two first happened on the Ten Goose Gym in North Hollywood when they were selling candy door-to-door for extra money as 12-year-olds, it was Gabriel who was seen as the fighter and Rafael who was, well, the studious one.

“We knew sooner or later that he’d end up working with numbers,” said Gabriel, himself a former super-featherweight champion and one of Rafael’s 12 siblings. “Ever since he was a little boy, he was very smart for his age, very intelligent. When he was 16 or 17, he was already getting green cards for the whole family and getting passports for our parents to be able to travel.

“When we started boxing I told him: ‘You’re too skinny. You don’t want to do this. I’ll fight and you handle my finances so I don’t spend it all.’ Even when we were selling candy, he could sell an empty box, that’s how good he was.”

Even when Rafael Ruelas was locked away in training camp, away from the daily distractions that a normal person takes as day-to-day living, he would immerse himself in books during downtime.

He would read biographies and inspirational writings by the likes of Norman Vincent Peale and C.S. Lewis while checking out the daily stock report.

He would reflect on how he took a summer job during high school with the law firm of Caprio and Freixes, simply intending to make some extra money to buy a car but ending up processing amnesty applications and translating birth certificates from Spanish to English.

He would remember how he graduated early from North Hollywood High and had a standing offer to work full time with the firm. And how he had business cards printed in Spanish that told of his acumen for helping with the amnesty process as well as specializing in television, VCR and radio repair.

“I had made some decent money, I was doing well and I was paid up in my taxes,” said Ruelas, whose biggest payday was the $1 million he made in the De La Hoya fight. “Along the way I had picked up a financial education and wanted to utilize it just like I utilized my boxing training in fights. I wanted to get that same satisfaction of attaining a goal.”

It was after the loss to Tszyu that Ruelas enrolled in UCLA extension courses and started soaking up as much formal knowledge of the financial world as possible.

With visions of 401K programs, money markets and IRAs, he had no problem holing up for school in the same manner he would before a fight. Besides, it felt so much like boxing training camp, the way it demanded discipline and a stringent schedule.

When he wasn’t in class from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., Ruelas was hitting the books in his temporary living quarters at a Fountain Valley hotel room. In fact, on his first day of a week-plus seminar at the specialized University of Phoenix in Costa Mesa, he was taken aback when the instructor told the gathering that they were “in the zone.”

“It was like I was back in boxing training camp, except this was a studying camp,” Ruelas said. “They even told us that the day before the test, we should have a high protein meal, low carbs. That’s what I would eat the day before a fight.”

The class served as a vehicle to prepare him for the six-hour Series 7 test, which, if he passes, would give him the credentials to be a broker for PaineWebber.

“I think of it with a lot of pride and satisfaction, but it would still be just the beginning,” said Ruelas, who is planning to take the test in late July. “I’m not just learning this material to pass an exam, I’m learning it to use and help others.”

He is already a licensed tax preparer for H&R; Block and gives volumes of advice to his family.

Ruelas, who came from a small ranch called Yerba Buena in Jalisco, Mexico, when he was 5 years old to live with an older sister, tells anyone within earshot the importance and advantages of investments and setting up retirement funds. “It really hit me when I became a dad,” said Ruelas, whose son, Rafael Sebastian, was born last August. “I want to be around and see him grow up, talk with him about how it was and make sure he’s taken care of [financially].”

He sometimes wonders if the years of fighting have had an adverse effect on him. He had a CAT scan of his brain after the De La Hoya fight just to make sure everything was fine. It was.

“You know, sometimes I think my speech is a little bit slurred and I wonder if it’s due to boxing,” he said. “But then I realize that it’s always been a little bit slurred, even when I speak in Spanish.”

But he is, at heart, still a boxer.

Ruelas said he was offered a fight with Hector Camacho Jr. on the undercard of Mike Tyson’s recent bout in London, but it fell through at the last minute.

“If I win that, then I’m back in line for a title shot,” he said. “But it didn’t happen and, in a way, I’m glad because it would have set me back in school.

“I got great satisfaction from winning fights and pleasing my fans. It pleased me to please them. Now I have to do the same with my clients.”

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Rafael Ruelas Profile

* Born--April 26, 1971

* Height--5-10 1/2

* Hometown--Studio City

* Record--53-4 (42 KOs)

* Titles--Former International Boxing Federation (IBF) lightweight champion

RUELAS’ FIGHTS DURING TITLE REIGN

* Feb. 19, 1994--Won 12-round decision over Fred Pendleton to claim the IBF lightweight title.

* May 27, 1994--Stopped Mike Evgen in third round.

* Dec. 8, 1994--Knocked out Omar Pacheco in third round.

* Jan. 28, 1995--Stopped Billy Schwer in eighth round.

* May 6, 1995--Knocked out by Oscar De La Hoya in second round.