BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Arum Mulling Olympic Auditorium

He stresses that no deal has been cut, but Las Vegas promoter Bob Arum says that he has his eye on Los Angeles’ fabled Olympic Auditorium.

Arum, who is Oscar De La Hoya’s promoter, would like to turn the Olympic--undergoing restoration--into not only a showcase theater for De La Hoya, but all of his other boxers as well.

Arum and his Beverly Hills father-in-law, retired businessman Morrie Hazan, are talking with the building’s owner, Jack Needleman, about a possible lease.

Previously, it had seemed as though Van Nuys promoter Dan Goossen was at the head of the promotional line at the Olympic.

Goossen seemed a bit miffed when told that Arum and Hazan were meeting with Needleman.

“As far as I know, Jack and I had a verbal deal to do monthly shows there,” Goossen said. “If that’s changed, I’m not aware of it.”

Arum, who owns the ESPN boxing show, said he could put up to a dozen ESPN shows a year in the Olympic. He added that he would like to stage twice-monthly shows in the Olympic, plus HBO and pay-per-view fights.

And if the old 18th and Grand venue seems like the perfect site for De La Hoya, he says the same is true for all his Latino fighters, mentioning Michael Carbajal, Zack Padilla and Rudy Zavala.

The Olympic is still, 68 years after Jack Dempsey turned over the first spadeful of dirt at a 1925 ground-breaking ceremony, the only building in America ever built expressly for boxing.

And it is still boarded up, as it has been since 1985. But Needleman is slowly bringing the 8,900-seat facility up to date.

It has a new roof, new plumbing, new electricity, new paint and a 4,500-space parking garage a block away. Also a block away is a Blue Line train stop.

And arriving now are 8,900 new theater seats.

So it seems that the Olympic is on the verge of an incredible comeback. When it was boarded up in 1985 and became a giant pigeon coop, it seemed certain to face a date with the wrecking ball.

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There’s a new wrinkle to the furor over California’s inadequate medical and hospitalization insurance coverage of pro boxers.

Last month, the Helping Hand Club of Azusa held a benefit to help Johnny Chavez, who six months ago came out of a Forum fight with major retina injuries in both eyes.

Chavez, whose medical bills have reached $67,000 and are still climbing, was only the latest victim of an insurance system that simply doesn’t cover boxers for major injuries.

But now, it turns out that there has been a boxer’s welfare fund all along, with more than $250,000 in it, that has apparently done nothing since 1984 except collect interest.

The Boxers and Wrestlers Benefit Fund is a trust fund registered with the state of California. As of Dec. 31, 1992, the fund’s assets came to $252,622.

Retired Southland promoter Don Fraser recalls that for decades, the fund was the only money available to help injured boxers.

“For about 20 years (45, actually), boxers, managers and promoters paid 1% or 2% of what they earned at fight shows into the fund,” he said.

“It was a fund to help boxers pay for injuries. In 1984, the commission required the promoters to carry insurance, so no more money went into the fund.

“As far as I know, none of that money has since gone to help any boxer, and I have no idea why.”

Richard DeCuir, the California Athletic Commission’s executive officer, recently learned of the fund’s existence.

“We want to talk to those people, and find out why none of that money has been used for the purpose for which it was intended,” he said.

At the office of the Registry for Charitable Trusts in Sacramento, the fund’s president is listed as Gordon del Faro. Bob Voight is listed as vice president and Norm Lockwood as treasurer.

Del Faro, who served on the commission in the 1970s, said the fund began in 1939 and lasted until 1984, when contributions stopped. At that point, he says now, the trustees’ obligation to help injured boxers ceased.

“Before 1984, we were obligated to take care of boxer injuries as they occurred,” del Faro said. “The commission never helped us in any way during those years, we just did it.”

When asked why the fund’s trustees don’t step forward in cases such as Johnny Chavez’s, del Faro said, “It’s not our place to help every fighter who’s down and out.”

Del Faro said the trustees want to use the money to create a youth amateur boxing club, but that the process has taken years in the Sacramento bureaucracy.

“I know the commission would love to get their hands on this money, but if they try to, it’ll all be eaten up by attorneys’ fees,” he said.

“I’d rather spend it on kids.”

Boxing Notes

That 28-second championship fight at the Forum last April 26 will be re-started Monday night. World Boxing Assn. junior-lightweight champion Genaro Hernandez and Raul Perez had not thrown a serious punch when they hit heads, leaving Perez with a severed artery above his right eye. The bout was called a technical draw and Perez’s wound was closed with 25 stitches. The 5-foot-11 Perez (50-3-3), from Tijuana, is a onetime bantamweight champion. Hernandez (27-0-1), from Mission Viejo, will defend his title for the fifth time.

Humberto Gonzalez, knocked out by Michael Carbajal in March, has been added to the Carbajal-topped pay-per-view show July 17 at Caesars Palace. Carbajal will fight a South Korean, Kim Kwang-Sun, in the main event. Gonzalez will box another South Korean, Kim Bong-Jun. Also on the card, Oscar De La Hoya will face Narciso Valenzuela in a 10-rounder. Promoter Bob Arum is talking about a possible Carbajal-Gonzalez rematch. When the two fought in March, both light-flyweights were knocked down before Carbajal won on a knockout with one second left in the seventh round. Trouble is, at what weight would the two fight again? Gonzalez spent a good part of that week in a steam room, struggling to make 108 pounds. If he has to go down to 108 again, there would be no reason to expect a different outcome.

Also on July 17, Rudy Zavala of Costa Mesa will fight Kennedy McKinney at Memphis for McKinney’s International Boxing Federation super-bantamweight championship. . . . Long Beach heavyweight Jeremy Williams (9-0), now training at Mike Tyson’s old camp at Catskill, N.Y., will face Frankie Swindell (27-9-1) July 8 at Biloxi, Miss., on ESPN. . . . At amateur boxing’s recent World Championships in Tampere, Finland, the results weren’t much different from those at last summer’s Olympics. Cubans won eight gold and three silver medals; at Barcelona, they won seven golds, two silvers.