Ballroom Bouts: 1st Round Is Black Tie : Boxing: After two trial runs, promoters win decision from Long Beach Planning Commission to stage fights at hotel.

This is not boxing at the Olympic Auditorium where you step in gum and throw beer. This is crystal chandeliers, ringside cocktails and gourmet hot dogs.

This is not a fight, it is “an evening.” Never mind that at the end of the evening somebody might leave with a face that resembles raw meat.

This is civilized boxing by the sea and it has come to the grand ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Long Beach.

“Most people’s idea of boxing is live from the Olympic Auditorium when they used to have riots and throw beers and referees got hit in the head with bottles. This is back to the days of Tunney and Dempsey and Madison Square Garden, when people got all dressed up to go to the fights,” said Jerry Westlund, an auctioneer and first-time boxing promoter at age 24.

In recent years, boxing has been moving from the sweaty, smoky arena to the grand ballrooms of suburban hotels throughout the country, where ring girls prance around in tasteful bathing suits with cards to help spectators keep track of the round.

Last week, the city Planning Commission gave Westlund and John Boyd Hall, a 31-year-old local furrier, permission to stage monthly bouts at the Hyatt for a year. That makes Long Beach the second city in Southern California to offer ballroom boxing with small purses, genteel crowds and young talents.

Matches so far have included the state middleweight championship, and up-and-comers like Steven Mwema, a bantamweight from the Kenyan Olympic boxing team who “a lot of insiders feel will be a world champ someday,” according to Hall.

Promoters have tried before and failed to bring “yuppie boxing” to Long Beach. Last year, a match scheduled at the Golden Sails Hotel on Pacific Coast Highway collapsed under the weight of numerous permits the city requires. The event was publicized, then canceled.

Promoter Don Fraser tried five years ago to put on matches under the wing of the Spruce Goose. Although he went on to make monthly fights a raging yuppie success at the Irvine Marriott--the only other site of high-class hotel boxing in Southern California--he threw in the towel in Long Beach.

“It did OK, then we broke for the summer, and it never did get going again,” he said. “At that time, there was no demand for boxing in Long Beach.”

Then along came Westlund and Hall, a couple of businessmen who sit on the boards of directors of local charities--a noticeable departure, they say, from the classic fight promoter with “greasy hair and gold chains who chews his cigar.”

They obtained licenses from the California Athletic Commission, then traveled from Las Vegas to Mexico scouting fighters. The city granted them special permission to put on two trial matches at the Hyatt, one in November and the other last Thursday night, while the Planning Commission decided whether to make Boxing by the Beach a permanent attraction.

Both matches were near-sellouts, the promoters report. Former heavyweight legend Ken Norton and two local city councilmen were there. The goal may have been tuxes and gowns, but there also were plenty of T-shirts and tennis shoes. At the first event, however, about 25 people from the Civic Light Opera did show up in black tie and sipped cocktails while 10 men in five bouts slugged each other over a 2 1/2-hour period.

“It just attracts a certain kind of crowd, a cut above the norm, a lot of yuppie action,” said Tim O’Connor, a Los Angeles diamond dealer who attended both matches, tooling into town in his Arctic-blue BMW, sipping Perrier from a ringside seat, then heading on to his oceanside home in Laguna Beach. “It has that Las Vegas feel.”

The ring girls--in one-piece bathing suits to preserve dignity--flashed their cards and the one who elicited the loudest hoots was pronounced the winner of the ring girl contest.

“The guys love ‘em,” Hall said. “Their swimsuits are very tasteful. You have to keep it tasteful. It’s not like you have a ring in a parking lot. This is a ballroom.”

The Planning Commission gave its unanimous approval to the idea after Commissioner Pat Schauer was disabused of the notion that the boxing crowd is a sweaty, smoky brawl waiting to happen.

“Will there be an exhaust system to handle the body heat and smoke?” she wanted to know. “How do you protect against butts going onto the carpet? Will there be extra police? Will liquor be sold at halftime?”

Not only are these nonsmoking events, the commission was assured, but some say they will go a long way toward attracting the after-hours crowd the city badly needs to wake up its ailing downtown commercial district.

All that remains to be seen now is whether yuppie boxing will knock Long Beach out.

“Long Beach is a big sports town,” Westlund said wishfully, noting that he once saw people lined up outside a sports bar at 8:30 Sunday morning to watch a Rams game.

The next boxing match is scheduled Feb. 13. The March match, date unknown, will feature the state heavyweight title bout, Westlund said.

Tickets range from $20 to $40. The best seats are ringside with cocktail table service and the worst are no more than 48 feet from the action, Westlund said.