Gonzales Longs to Hear Some Cheers : Boxing: Olympic champion can’t please local fans, who boo him because they prefer to watch a slugger, not a defensive specialist.

It was never supposed to turn out like this.

They’re booing Paul Gonzales in his own town. Yep, that Paul Gonzales--the kid from East L.A. who not only won a gold medal boxing at the 1984 Olympics but won the most-outstanding-boxer award, as well.

He tries to hide the hurt, but you know there has to be some pain, underneath.

Five years ago, Gonzales emerged from the Olympics with his light-flyweight gold medal and a smile from here to East L.A. There were no frontiers to his future then. He talked confidently, if a bit naively, about winning multiple pro championships.

Now, he’s finally getting close to that first championship fight. He could get a title fight at the Forum in February. But as he gets close, he’s having to endure some mystifyingly hostile crowds along the way.

Since the post-World War II years, boxing has been popular in Southern California’s Mexican-American communities. But you had to be a special kind of fighter to win over the tough crowds--the kind who fearlessly would take a big punch in order to unload an even bigger one.

And if, besides fighting fearlessly, you could knock your opponent down with a single punch, that was even better. That would make you a star here.

Paul Gonzales was never that kind of fighter. And never will be.

Apparently, he’s stuck in the wrong era. Gonzales would have been perfect for the 1920s, when every YMCA in America had a boxing instructor and athletes were taught the art and science of boxing, not velocity and impact.

Gonzales will never remind anyone of Mike Tyson or Rocky Marciano. But watching him use a left jab or countering a slipped right hand with a solid left hook to the ribs evokes the classic styles of, say, Kid Chocolate, Gene Tunney and Sandy Saddler.

The other night at the Forum, Gonzales put on as expert a display of technical boxing as you could ask for, won every round against another good boxer, Antonio Lozada, and was booed at the finish.

Last Aug. 31, he took on a shorter, brawling fighter named Armando Castro, easily won another decision . . . and was booed.

“It doesn’t bother me, not at all,” he said.

“I know what I have to do to win, and I do it. I’m a boxer, not a slugger. If one or two people in the crowd enjoy watching what I do, then I’m happy. The name of the game is winning, and the name of that game is to hit and not get hit.”

These, though, are tough times for Gonzales. Not only is he unappreciated on his home turf, but he recently split up with his longtime trainer-manager-friend-father figure, Al Stankie.

Gonzales’ new manager is Paul Gonzales.

“Al and I had some problems for some time, but that’s in the past now,” he said. “I’m my own manager now. Al and I are friends, but he has nothing to do with my boxing career anymore.”

In happier days, Gonzales called Stankie “Dad,” and for four years lived with Stankie’s family at their Cerritos home. Stankie, when he was an L.A. cop working the East L.A. barrio, pulled 10-year-old Gonzales out of a gang, put him in a gym and discovered he had found a natural.

When Gonzales was a teen, the two of them began predicting a gold medal at the L.A. Olympics and darned if Gonzales didn’t pull it off. For a while in 1985, a screenplay called “The Cop and the Kid” was being passed around the film industry.

Gonzales, who broke his right hand in his first bout in the Olympics, essentially winning the gold medal with left hand, took a year off after the Games to heal. He was paid $40,000 by CBS to televise his pro debut at the Hollywood Palladium. His biggest payday has been $69,000. Then came a series of freak injuries--he ran his car over his knee (he’s never been able to explain that one clearly), he fell from a bike, suffering a hairline hip fracture, and had another hand injury. Those misfortunes accounted for two years of idle time.

But even when active, Gonzales seemed to be adrift as a pro, bouncing from one promoter to another.

Sacramento promoter Don Chargin said that Stankie and Gonzales erred in not developing a home base early in the fighter’s career.

“Part of Paul’s problem is, he has no following,” Chargin said. “If he’d started out at the Forum and stayed there, or in Irvine, he’d have one. There are lots of good fighters. But if you’re a good fighter with a following--that’s what promoters look for.”

Maybe if he wins a title, the boos will stop.

Forum matchmaker Antonio Curtis says he has tentative arrangements to match Gonzales with Nana Konadu of Ghana, the World Boxing Council’s new super-flyweight champion, at the Forum on Feb. 26. But there’s a catch. Konadu, who recently upset Gilberto Roman in Mexico City to win the title, has a December defense in South Korea against Sun-Kil Moon.

In the meantime, Gonzales says he won’t change his style for the sake of pleasing the crowd.

“My style works for me,” he said. “It’s how I win.”