The younger brother of Gabriel Ruelas who was IBF champ for a spell. He looked like he had potential, having beaten guys such as Steve Cruz, Rocky Lockridge, Freddie Pendleton and Jorge Paez. Didn’t seem to quite reach too far after Oscar de la Hoya exposed him but he was a fighter who came to fight. A rather crude and predictable come forward fighter with bad balance but still made for some crowd pleasing fights. This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected
Gabriel was the gifted one. Rafael got by on conditioning, grit and really taking to coaching — it looked like nothing came naturally to him, so he just drilled and drilled to make himself as good as he could. Loved watching the guy. Paint by numbers fighter with little to no natural instinct, but always brought his all and never backed down from challenges.
Rafeal was, in my opinion, unique in one unfortunate regard; he got worse after he became champion. There is an old saying that winning a title improves a fighter substantially, but not Rafael. After he won the title his balance got worse, his punches wider and less sharp. I was there the night he beat Pendleton. Going in I thought that the fight would go one of two ways. The first, and most likely, was that Pendleton would stop Ruelas early by making him reach and countering him. That almost happened as Ruelas was down twice in the first. The second was that Ruelas would keep punching and wear Pendleton down to win a decision. That is what happened though, again in my opinion, Ruelas benefitted from two knockdowns against him being ruled slips. Be that as it may be, Ruelas fought his heart out that night against a guy with a rocket of a right hand.
Pendleton talked smack calling Rueles a "wet dishrag" which backfired as Ruelas was highly motivated to beat him which he did
