Boxing : Inactive Gonzales Still Seeking First World Title

When boxer Paul Gonzales of East Los Angeles won a gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games, the exhilaration of the moment got the better of him. After he turned professional, he predicted, he’d win six world championships.

Nearly four years later, Gonzales is still looking for that first pro title. In fact, he’s trying hard just to keep busy. He has been one of the least active members of the 1984 U.S. Olympic boxing team.

There are whispers that Gonzales’ brittle hands have held him back. He has had hand surgery twice but insists that luck, mostly bad, has kept him leashed.

Despite his inactivity, Gonzales is undefeated in seven pro fights and will try to extend his streak to eight on May 23 when he boxes Jorge Ortega (9-5-1) of Mexico City at the Irvine Marriott. It’s a tuneup, he says, for bigger game.

After that, he says, he’ll be gunning for Thailand’s Sot Chitalada, the World Boxing Council flyweight champion. Or, failing that, he’ll try to pick a fight with Colombia’s Fidel Bassa, the World Boxing Assn. champion.

“I could be a world champion in ‘88, if things break right for me,” Gonzales said.

“Bassa is fighting Hilario Zapata of Panama in Miami next month. Either one of them would be willing to meet me in L.A. or Las Vegas in a title fight. We’ve been trying to get a title fight with Chitalada for a long time. We had one set up for last Dec. 18 at the Sports Arena, but it fell through.

“Chitalada wanted me to come to Bangkok, but I wanted no part of that. It would’ve been Caracas (where Gonzales lost a Pan American Games gold medal in 1983 on a disputed decision) all over again.”

With better luck, Gonzales said, contenders would be chasing him now.

“I wish I’d had a lot more than seven fights by now,” he said. “In fact, I should have been both the junior fly and flyweight champion by now. It’s not true that I’ve got bad hands. Every boxer has hand problems. I had hand surgery right after the Olympics, and it took a year to heal up.”

Then came the Corvette caper.

In December, 1986, Gonzales jumping into the driver’s seat of his new Corvette, dislodged the gear shift with his right knee. Somehow, the car rolled over his left ankle, breaking it. That put him in the pits for seven more months.

No one has ever questioned Gonzales’ skills or courage. He is a classic boxer-puncher, unusually tall, at 5 feet 9 inches, and lean for a flyweight.

One of the most anticipated matchups of the Los Angeles Olympics was Gonzales against South Korea’s Kim Kwang Sun, the World Cup champion. It was a natural for the final. But instead, because of the blind draw, they wound up squaring off in the preliminaries.

It wasn’t close. Sun, a much shorter slugger, was dropped in the first round by Gonzales’ right hand and was never in the bout. Because of the way Gonzales dominated Sun and his impressive victories through the semifinals--he didn’t box in the finals because his injured opponent withdrew--Gonzales was awarded the Olympics’ most outstanding boxer award.

And when it came out a month later that Gonzales had broken his right hand on Sun’s head with the knockdown punch and had gone on to win four Olympic bouts with a broken hand, he won everyone’s most courageous award, too.

Mike LeBell, one-time general manager at the Olympic Auditorium and a Los Angeles-area wrestling promoter, was arrested this week by Secret Service agents and charged with participation in a national ring selling stolen long-distance telephone access codes.

LeBell, 57, son of the late boxing promoter Aileen Eaton, was charged in a criminal complaint with possessing nearly 300 U.S. Sprint access code numbers. The case grew out of an undercover Secret Service investigation in Honolulu.

Alex Garcia, promising heavyweight from Van Nuys, has signed to fight Oscar Holman of Philadelphia at the Sports Arena May 7.

The question is why?

Garcia, a 6-2, 220-pounder with knockout power, has an 8-0 record. Holman is a journeyman who is going nowhere. His record, depending on which record keeper is consulted, is 9-12-1, or maybe 12-13. One statistician has him losing his last eight. Another has him 12-14-2.

Blinky Rodriguez, Garcia’s manager, says if Garcia wins impressively against Holman, he’ll move him up to a match with either Mark Wills or California champion Mike White.

Boxing Notes

The companion 10-rounder on the Paul Gonzales-Jorge Ortega card at Irvine May 23 matches super-welterweights Tomas Perez of Santa Ana (16-3) and Joe Walker of Akron, Ohio (14-1). . . . California heavyweight champion Mike White of Long Beach fight Eddie Richardson of Fort Worth May 16 in Fresno.

Don Chargin’s impressive junior welterweight, Loreto Garza (20-1-1) scored an upset knockout of Harry Arroyo, former International Boxing Federation champion, recently in Sacramento. Arroyo had been stopped just once in 40 fights. . . . New York’s city council has declared May 3 “Sugar Ray Robinson Day” in New York. . . . Gianfranco Rosi’s WBC junior middleweight title defense against Donald Curry was set back to July 8 after Rosi broke his collarbone playing soccer.

NBC will televise a light-heavyweight bout matching Bobby Czyz (32-2) and Dennis Andries (32-6-2) May 22 from Atlantic City, N.J. . . . Middleweight John (The Beast) Mugabi (27-2, 27 knockouts) meets Knox Brown (28-14-2) on a USA TV show Thursday from Atlantic City. . . . Vinny Pazienza, former IBF lightweight champion, was scheduled to make his debut as a junior welterweight against Olympic champion Jerry Page May 29, but the bout will probably be postponed. Pazienza was hospitalized this week because of an elbow infection. . . .The live gate for the June 27 Mike Tyson-Michael Spinks fight at the 19,000-seat Atlantic City Convention Hall is up to a record $8.5 million and climbing, according to Trump Plaza vice president Mark Etess. “We’ve sold all 2,300 $1,500 seats, and we’ve sold about half of the 3,696 $1,000 seats.”