Magdaleno’s Career Down But Not Out : Boxing: Hard times have been common for the light heavyweight in the main bout on Thursday’s Irvine fight card.

Light heavyweight Ernie Magdaleno wishes he could say his boxing career wasn’t supposed to be like this, but he can’t. Magdaleno, 32, entered the professional ranks of this much-maligned and brutal sport six years ago with his eyes open and his hands clenched into a tight fist.

“You know going in that it’s the most crooked sport there is,” Magdaleno said. “When something goes wrong, you expect it.”

Although Magdaleno has won 20 of 22 fights and has been ranked No. 1 in the world, he has come to expect a barrage of broken promises, broken dreams and missed opportunities. But that doesn’t mean he has absorbed the blows any better.

“It’s real frustrating,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t even want to bother. You say, ‘I’m just going to get a job and forget about all of this.’ ”

A month ago, Magdaleno nearly acted on his frustration and retired. He has had a promotional contract with Don King for three years, and in that span he has fought only five times--once for a world title. Rather than wait for another title shot or even another fight, Magdaleno considered turning his part-time job as a carpenter and carpet layer into a career.

“I wanted a release from my contract, but my brothers told me to wait out the year and see what happens,” Magdaleno said.

While he’s waiting for King to make a move, Magdaleno has decided to stay active on his own. Thursday night in the Irvine Marriott’s main event, Magdaleno (20-1-1) will fight Ramon Santos (10-3) of Lancaster. Santos, 25, is coming off an impressive knockout victory over eighth-ranked Gary Ballard and could ruin any hopes Magdaleno has about getting another title shot.

But Clyde Armijo, Magdaleno’s trainer and manager, said his fighter had no choice but to risk his No. 5 World Boxing Assn. ranking against Santos for roughly $3,000. Armijo said Magdaleno makes nearly $20,000 for most of his contracted bouts with King.

“We’re fighting for peanuts, but we took it so Ernie could stay busy,” said Armijo, who has been with Magdaleno throughout his pro career. “We had to take it. We were hoping King would take this as one of his contracted fights, but he wouldn’t do it.”

King has had his own problems of late. He was on trial for six weeks in U.S. District Court for insurance fraud, but a mistrial was declared when the jurors could not agree on a verdict. Armijo said he speaks with King’s associates at least once a week, but Armijo said the talks have been exasperating.

“He’s promised us a fight with Virgil Hill, the WBA champion hopefully around the first of the year,” Armijo said. “He’s preoccupied with the stars. He gets them fights and keeps them busy.”

Magdaleno thinks King simply has too many boxers under contract.

“He’s forgetting about most of his fighters,” Magdaleno said. “Even Michael Carbajal [a former world champion] can’t get a fight. He only has three or four shows a year and he can’t oblige all his fighters.”

Mike Marley, a King spokesman, said King has done all he can to appease Magdaleno.

“He had a world championship fight [with Henry Maske] that Don arranged for him and he lost,” Marley said. “That’s not chopped liver. Don has given him fights whenever possible. We do have a tremendous number of fighters. Don has 40 world champions. There are guys who would like to fight once a week but that’s not humanly possible.”

Magdaleno said he’s received calls from other promoters, but they are leery of dealing with him until he’s released from his contract with King. Magdaleno said promoter Bob Arum, who owns rights to many of the ranked light heavyweights, won’t deal with him because of his dislike for King.

But not all of Magdaleno’s inactivity can be blamed on King, Arum or any other promoter. Part of the problem is Magdaleno himself.

“I throw awkward punches,” he said. “I don’t make the name guys look good. I’m awkward because when I complete a combination, guys expect you to take a step and stop. But I take a half step back and then start throwing punches again. I throw punches from all angles. I don’t punch real hard, but I keep real busy.”

Magdaleno’s only loss came in Germany to the current IBF light heavyweight champion, Maske. Magdaleno was behind on points when he accidentally butted heads with Maske in the ninth round. Magdaleno was cut badly above the eye from the butt and the bout had to be stopped. When the judges went to the scorecards, Magdaleno’s undefeated record was gone and so was his shot at the title, though he did pocket $100,000 for his trouble.

“I started coming on,” Magdaleno said. “I started slow like most of my fights but I think I would have won if it had gone 12 rounds.”

The Maske fight might have sent a flare in the direction of other top-ranked boxers. Since last year, Magdaleno has had to scramble to fight anyone. He’s had fights delayed, postponed and eventually canceled. His last fight was three months ago in Las Vegas, a 10-round decision over Mike Peak. Before that, he defeated Juan Carlos Jimenez, who lost to world champion Nigel Benn.

“A lot of times, they’ll say you have a fight in a couple weeks,” said Magdaleno, who lives in Westminster. “I’ll miss a chance to do a job on a house with my brothers, then they’ll cancel the fight. It winds up costing me a lot of money.”

But somehow Magdaleno convinces himself the grief is worth it.

“I stay in it so I can benefit from boxing somehow,” he said, “so I can get a house. I’ve put so much time and effort into it, I might as well try and get something out of it.”

Magdaleno never planned on getting much back from boxing. He had a short and unspectacular amateur career in his early 20s. Then he went to school for a few years and got married. At 26, he trained for six months and then turned pro.

“People were telling me if I didn’t give it a chance I’d regret it,” he said. “I said I’d fight once and see how it went. It went real good and then I said I’d fight till I lost.”

Now Magdaleno said he will fight two more years at the most and another week at the least.

“If I was quick or if I had the big punch, I’d be fun to watch and I’d be on TV a lot,” he said. “Instead, I have to do it the hard way. That’s OK with me. I just need a break.”