Comeback by Shields Put on Hold : Boxing: North Hollywood fighter suffered a fractured jaw in his first bout in almost eight years and will not fight again until next year.

Randy Shields of North Hollywood, one of the top welterweights in the world a decade ago who returned to the ring after a retirement of nearly eight years, sustained a fractured jaw in his Sept. 25 comeback fight and again will hang up his boxing gloves.

At least until next year.

A doctor said the jaw likely had a hairline fracture before Shields, 34, stepped into the ring for the fight last month and that a blow during the fourth round fractured the bone completely. Shields had sustained an injury to the jaw during sparring sessions a month before the fight but refused to call off his first comeback fight.

Shields’ jaw was fractured on the left side by a crushing right hand thrown by Stewart Baynes of Los Angeles in their junior middleweight bout at the Country Club in Reseda. The blow staggered Shields, but he stayed on his feet and held on until the bell. Despite the fracture, he fought brilliantly in the final six rounds and won a lopsided unanimous 10-round decision.

“I had the injury four weeks before the fight, during training,” Shields said Tuesday, speaking through closed jaws. “The bone cracked, but it didn’t break all the way. I never thought about postponing the fight, though. It hurt, but it was OK.

“But in the fourth round of the fight, that one shot broke it again. I felt it and I knew what happened, but I didn’t worry about it. It just got tight on me. It didn’t hurt. Not at all.

“Well, it hurt a little bit. But in the heat of battle you don’t think about things like that.”

X-rays taken the day after the fight did not reveal the injuries, according to Shields’ manager, Dan Goossen of the Ten Goose Boxing Club in Van Nuys. But the pain persisted, and Friday the fracture was discovered by another physician, Dr. Keith Radack of Burbank. Shields’ jaws were wired together Monday, 13 days after the fight.

Radack said that the jaw would remain wired for three to four weeks. Shields will be unable to fight or spar again until 1991. He had planned to fight again in November.

Shields compiled a 41-9-1 record as a welterweight in the late 1970s and early 1980s when he fought the best welterweights in the world, including Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Pipino Cuevas.

Only Hearns stopped Shields, and that fight was halted because of cuts over Shields’ eyes in a bout that Shields led on all scorecards into the 10th round. Against Leonard, he lost a close and controversial 10-round decision. And against Cuevas, the legendary champion from Mexico, Shields again lost a close and highly controversial decision. Cuevas, despite being awarded the victory, was hospitalized after the fight.

In his comeback fight, Shields weighed 154 pounds, seven pounds above the welterweight limit and six below the middleweight limit. Baynes dragged a 9-12 record into the fight but showed tremendous power in the early rounds. In the fourth, he backed Shields up with a heavy jab and then landed the jolting right to Shields’ jaw. Shields, obviously hurt, sagged against the ropes and took several more hard punches to the jaw before the round ended.

He rallied in the fifth, however, and regained control of the fight. He staggered Baynes in three of the final six rounds en route to the victory.

Shields said that the fractured jaw would only delay his comeback.

“This just makes me more determined,” he said. “You’ve got to change your own luck, and that’s what I’m determined to do.

“These are just the breaks.”