Olivares was born on January 14, 1947, in Mexico City, growing up in the working-class Bondojito neighborhood of the city’s Gustavo A. Madero borough (El Universal). His full name is Rubén Olivares Ávila, and he took the nickname "El Púas," meaning "The Spikes," for the sharp, relentless way he attacked opponents in the ring (The Grueling Truth). Before boxing offered a way out, he helped support his family by selling newspapers and shining shoes on the streets of Mexico City (The Grueling Truth).

Olivares built an amateur record reported at 82 wins against just 3 losses before turning professional in 1965 at age 17, opening his career with a first-round knockout of Freddy García in Cuernavaca (The Grueling Truth). His trademark from the start was a devastating left hook, a punch that produced knockout after knockout and quickly made him one of the most feared action fighters in Mexican boxing (Wikipedia). He won each of his first 22 professional fights by knockout, a run that ended only when Felipe González became the first man to take him the distance, on March 8, 1967 (Wikipedia).

Olivares’s rise culminated on August 22, 1969, when he knocked out Australian champion Lionel Rose in the fifth round at the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, California, to capture the undisputed WBA and WBC world bantamweight titles (Wikipedia). By that point his record stood at roughly 51 wins, no losses and a draw, and the victory instantly made him one of the biggest stars in Mexican sport, a fighter capable of selling out arenas on both sides of the border (The Fight Site).

Olivares’s title reign set off one of the great rivalries in Mexican boxing history, a three-fight series with Jesús "Chucho" Castillo that included a 15-round decision win for Olivares in April 1970, a 14th-round stoppage loss that cost him the title that October, and a 15-round decision win to reclaim the belt in April 1971 (Wikipedia). He lost the bantamweight title for good to Rafael Herrera by eighth-round knockout in March 1972, then moved up to featherweight, where he knocked out Zensuke Utagawa in seven rounds to win the vacant WBA title in July 1974, lost that belt to Alexis Arguello by 13th-round knockout that November, then won the WBC featherweight title with a second-round knockout of Bobby Chacon in June 1975 before losing it on a 15-round decision to Ghana’s David Kotey that September (Wikipedia). He retired in 1988 with a professional record of 89 wins, 13 losses and 3 draws from 105 fights, and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991 (International Boxing Hall of Fame).

In a 1999 Associated Press poll, Olivares was voted the top bantamweight of the 20th century, and Ring magazine later ranked him twelfth on its list of the greatest punchers in boxing history (Wikipedia). Boxing historians have gone further still, with The Fight Site ranking him the single greatest bantamweight of all time, ahead of other legends of the division (The Fight Site). He remains one of the most celebrated fighters to come out of Mexico City, a status still visible decades after his final fight in the warmth of his reception at public events and in his home neighborhood (El Universal).

No modern endorsement or sponsorship deal tied to Olivares was found in the sourcing for this profile. He fought in an era, the 1960s and 1970s, when Mexican boxing stars earned almost entirely from fight purses and gate receipts rather than outside brand partnerships, and his financial history in the decades since, marked by reported losses rather than new income streams, is consistent with there being no ongoing endorsement business to document (Heraldo Deportes).

Outside the ring, Olivares appeared in roughly a dozen Mexican films, most notably starring as himself in the 1984 biographical picture "Las Glorias del Gran Púas," though this functioned as an entertainment credit rather than a business venture (SDPnoticias). As of the early 2020s he was still collecting royalty payments from those film appearances, reported at roughly 2,000 Mexican pesos, a little over $100, per month (SDPnoticias). No other company, restaurant, gym or commercial venture bearing his name is documented in reliable sourcing for this profile.

No reliable public record of real estate, vehicles or other major assets currently owned by Olivares exists in the sourcing for this profile. Mexican outlets have reported that he once had a fortune described as more than two million dollars, along with houses, cars and restaurants, but lost virtually all of it to years of heavy drinking and poor investments, and by his 70s had resorted to selling personal items, including at one point offering his WBC championship belt for sale at Mexico City’s La Lagunilla flea market (Heraldo Deportes; La Silla Rota).