Ruelas’ Spirits Brighten With His Fight Date : Boxing: Arleta lightweight to return to the ring June 1 after suffering a broken bone in his right elbow last April.

Gabriel Ruelas, the once-beaten lightweight from Arleta, had been under bright lights twice in the past 12 months. He faced the glare once again Thursday, although this time the circumstances differed from the previous occasions. This time, in a plush hotel meeting room in Bel-Air, there were no surgeons hovering over him. And no machines monitoring his heart beat. Ruelas was facing TV camera lights.

And he was conscious.

Ruelas, whose rapid rise toward boxing’s big time was smashed back to earth a year ago by the crack of a bone in his right elbow during a fight, is back.

A year of surgery and physical therapy and suffering ended officially at a news conference announcing his return to the ring. Ruelas, 20, will fight on the undercard of the Van Nuys-based Ten Goose Boxing Club’s first major promotion, a June 1 show in Palm Springs matching World Boxing Council super welterweight champion Terry Norris, who pounded Sugar Ray Leonard into retirement in February, against former welterweight and super welterweight champion Donald Curry, and a co-main event pitting World Boxing Assn. welterweight champion Meldrick Taylor against unbeaten Luis Garcia.

An opponent for Ruelas has not yet been found, or at least not yet named, according to promoter Dan Goossen. But that is of no concern to Ruelas.

“I’ve never been hungrier than I am now,” Ruelas said. “I see people in the gym who are in my weight division and I can’t stand it. I feel like saying, ‘Let’s fight, me and you. Right now.’ I don’t even want to get paid. I just want to fight somebody.”

Ruelas, the older--by nine months--brother of newly crowned North American Boxing Federation featherweight champion Rafael Ruelas, had built a 21-0 record with 12 knockouts before taking on veteran Jeff Franklin in Las Vegas last April 14. He fought despite severe pain in his right elbow that developed in the weeks before the fight, but he was given medical clearance for the bout after a diagnosis of a hyperextension of the joint.

Actually, a bone in the elbow had sustained a minor stress fracture during sparring before the fight.

And, in a fight he was winning easily, Ruelas crumbled to the canvas in the seventh round after Franklin, who had been told by his trainer that Ruelas’ right elbow was injured, wrenched Ruelas’ arm during a clinch, snapping the bone. Franklin was awarded a technical knockout when Ruelas could not continue.

Surgery in Las Vegas left Ruelas with two screws holding the bones together, but last November doctors in Los Angeles determined the bone had not properly healed. The bone was reset in a second operation, performed in November by noted orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tony Daly.

Two months ago, Ruelas was given clearance to resume training. And a month ago, he began pounding the heavy bag in the Ten Goose gym with his right hand.

“It doesn’t hurt a bit,” Ruelas said. “It feels stronger than ever. . . . I am ready to fight.”

His choice for his first opponent?

“Franklin,” Ruelas said. “I saw him in a gym in Las Vegas last week. He came over to me and sort of apologized. I told him, ‘Don’t come near me. You don’t want to be this close to me.’ And then he left. After the fight last year, he was telling people in his gym that he did it on purpose. I would like to fight him again. I would really like to fight him again.”

It will not happen on June 1, according to Goossen. And likely, he said, there will be no rematch.

“He wants to fight Fanklin for good old butt-kicking reasons,” Goossen said. “It might be good for the fans and it would be enjoyable for Gabriel, but I don’t think Jeff Franklin wants to show up in that dark alley. I just can’t imagine him doing it. After what I saw in the gym last week when they met, frankly I think Jeff Franklin is scared to death of him.”