Norris to Make Title Defense in San Diego : Boxing: ABC will televise Feb. 22 fight against Carl Daniels. The bout will be the first of a series of monthly boxing shows at the San Diego Sports Arena.

SAN DIEGO —  World junior-middleweight champion Terry Norris of Campo will make the sixth defense of his title against Carl Daniels of Las Vegas on Feb. 22 at the San Diego Sports Arena, Richard Esquinas, president of the Sports Arena, said Wednesday.

Esquinas said the show will kick off monthly Ten Goose Boxing-promoted shows at the Sports Arena.

“We’re going to go monthly after that, on the last Wednesday of every month,” Esquinas said. “We’re pretty excited about regular boxing here--we’re really driving on this thing. We think they’re a lot of boxing fans in the San Diego area and in Tijuana, and we don’t think anyone’s really tried to develop it.”

Last Aug. 17, Norris defended his title against Brett Lally at the Sports Arena and drew a paid crowd of 4,200. The 15,000-seat building has been host for occasional boxing promotions--including the 1973 Muhammad Ali-Ken Norton fight--but none on a regular schedule.

The Norris-Daniels fight will be carried on ABC television. Joe Sayatovich, Norris’ manager, said his ABC was responsible for Norris’ opponent.

“We gave ABC a list of fighters and they picked Daniels,” Sayatovich said.

Daniels, the World Boxing Assn.’s second-ranked welterweight, is 26-0 with 17 knockouts.

“He’s a southpaw who is very unorthodox with good hand speed,” Sayatovich said. “Terry ought to be able to take this guy. The only thing I don’t care for is left-handers have a tendency to make the performance of a very good fighter not look so good.”

Sayatovich said he chose ABC over pay-per-view television for the audience.

“The money isn’t very good compared to pay-per-view,” Sayatovich said. “But we need the exposure so we can set up a big-money fight later on HBO.”

Norris’ last bout was Dec. 13 in Paris against Jorge Castro of Argentina. Sayatovich said he has spoken with Lou Duva, the manager of WBA welterweight champion Meldrick Taylor, about a midyear fight. Taylor is defending his WBA title Jan. 18 against Glenwood Brown in Philadelphia.

Norris was hoping for a lucrative fight with IBF middleweight champion James Toney, but Sayatovich said he was unable to sell the bout to cable television when Toney fought Mike McCallum to a draw last month.

Sayatovich said the undercard fighters on Feb. 22 will include Mark Gastineau, former New York Jets defensive end, and junior lightweight Gabriel Ruelas and lightweight Rafael Ruelas of Arleta.

The Olympic Auditorium, thought to be facing an uncertain date with the wrecking ball, will instead reopen for regular boxing shows, its owner says.

The old boxing palace, at 18th and Grand in Los Angeles, has been boarded up since 1987. But owner Jack Needleman, who bought the building in 1980, says major repairs are under way, and he hopes to have a boxing show for a reopening in May.

Ten Goose Boxing of Van Nuys, which promotes boxing shows at the Reseda Country Club, is the leading candidate to promote boxing at a refurbished Olympic, Needleman said.

Needleman, who owns numerous parking lots and buildings in downtown Los Angeles, said he never intended to raze the Olympic.

“Everyone just assumed I was going to turn that property into a parking lot,” he said. “I never wanted to do that. I always wanted to bring the old lady back and turn her into a new lady. If anyone had bothered to ask me, I would have told them that.”

The Olympic, believed to be the only surviving major American arena built expressly for boxing, was constructed in 1925 for $500,000. At a groundbreaking ceremony on Jan. 11, 1925, heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey turned over the first spadeful of earth.

The Olympic was the venue for boxing, wrestling and weightlifting at the 1932 Olympic Games and a major professional boxing site in seven decades.

In the 1920s and 1930s, film stars such as Mae West, the Marx Brothers, Al Jolson, Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields and Bob Hope often were seen at Olympic’s ringside.

Promoter DAn Goossen said he plans to offer Olympic pro boxing shows on a monthly basis, with an occasional world championship fight.

“We won’t be after the million dollar-fights that Las Vegas gets, but we won’t have club fights, either,” he said. “And we want to develop a lot of talent at the Olympic, too.”

By comparison, Forum boxing averages a show every two weeks and has had a title fight in 24 of the last 32 months. John Jackson, president of Forum boxing, said he would welcome a new Olympic boxing program.