Ramos Scores Unanimous Decision in 1st Bout in 32 Months

Tuesday night was not the best night of Alex Ramos’ life, but it was likely better than most of the more than 600 nights he spent in prison.

Ramos, a former middleweight contender and a member of the ill-fated 1980 U.S. Olympic team, scored an easy, 10-round unanimous super welterweight decision over journeyman Ali Sanchez at the Country Club in Reseda in his first bout in 32 months.

Ramos, a native of the Bronx now living in Simi Valley, had not fought since Feb. 3, 1988, when he lost to junior middleweight Al Long in Riverside. Later that month he assaulted a former manager and a boxing promoter and was sent to prison in Corcoran, Calif.

He was paroled in January and began training for a boxing comeback.

The win was not pretty, but it was a solid effort by Ramos and gave him a 29-8-2 record. He said he plans to fight again this year.

Sanchez, of Miami, is 12-9 and lost for the seventh time in his past eight bouts.

Ramos, 163 pounds, started slowly, throwing few punches and landing one only occasionally in the first three rounds. In the fourth, he began to find the range and two minutes into the round he rocked Sanchez, 164, with a left-right combination. Seconds before the bell he stunned Sanchez again with a right to the jaw.

He never hurt Sanchez again, however, except for a low blow in the eighth that dropped Sanchez to the canvas and resulted in Ramos losing the round.

In the co-main event, heavyweight Orlin Norris, ranked 16th by the World Boxing Council, knocked out Henry Hearns of Lancaster at 2 minutes 10 seconds of the first round.

Hearns, nicknamed The Loveable One, handed Norris a red rose during the pre-fight instructions in the ring. Less than two minutes later, Norris gave Hearns a much bigger gift, a crushing left hook that lifted Hearns off his feet and sent him crumbling to the mat.

Hearns got up, however, but a minute later Norris, the former North American Boxing Federation champion, unloaded a 20-punch combination, ending it and the fight with a whistling uppercut to the chin that again lifted Hearns off the mat and dropped him onto his side. Referee Larry Rozadilla immediately halted the bout.

Norris, 218, is 25-2 with 12 knockouts. Hearns, 190, is 20-11.

In a scheduled four-round heavyweight bout, unbeaten heavyweight Jimmy Ellis, a former football player at Boise State now fighting out of Redondo Beach, stopped former Mexican heavyweight champion Rocky Valero at 2:10 of the second round.

Ellis, 225, is 12-0 with 11 knockouts. Valero, who said the fight would be his last, is 24-10.