Boxing

Former world welterweight boxing champion Carlos Palomino is making a comeback in the ring, and he's encouraging young fans to stop by the Anaheim Boxing Club today for a visit while he works out. Palomino, 47, a graduate of Westminster High School, will be training from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will be on hand to talk with boxing fans afterward. Palomino retired from boxing in 1979, but he's coming back for an Jan.

An Orange County boxing promoter with a history of success presenting bouts at the Irvine Marriott hotel is negotiating with Warner Center Marriott officials about promoting fights at the Woodland Hills hotel throughout 1997. Roy Englebrecht, promoter at Irvine since 1992, said Wednesday he is seeking a one-year contract with Warner Center to promote bouts on a monthly basis.

What's next for Fernando Vargas? Suddenly, the 18-year-old welterweight, who had assumed he would vault into the professional ranks after Olympic triumph, is a slightly less than golden free agent. Vargas, from Oxnard, has been associated both with the Shelly Finkel-Duva family alliance and with Stanley Levin, who manages Roy Jones Jr., and said Thursday afternoon that he will decide with whom to sign in a matter of days or weeks.

Mario Aguiniga spreads his fingers and methodically wraps them with surgical bandages, working his way up to the wrists, then solicits someone's help to slip on and lace a pair of boxing gloves. Aguiniga, 15, walks to a heavy bag and starts pounding it furiously, his eyes fixed on the target and his mind oblivious to the Mexican rancheras blasting from a boombox at La Colonia Boxing Club.

After 2 1/2 years with Bob Arum's Top Rank boxing organization, executive vice president Dan Goossen has resigned to start his own boxing group. "I've had a good time at Top Rank," said Goossen, "but now it's time to move on." Goossen first made an impact in the boxing business by forming the San Fernando Valley-based, Ten Goose Boxing Club, which, over 13 years, produced Gabriel and Rafael Ruelas and Michael Nunn, each of whom held world titles.

Antonio Tarver had been down before-- as far down as the streets of West Orlando, Fla., could take him--so he knew he could get up. But after coming back from a 5 1/2-year layoff from boxing and a hard bout with drugs, after missing out on the 1992 Olympics and patiently awaiting his chance for the Atlanta Games, after staging one of the most impressive runs in the history of American amateur boxing . . .

Think the boxing riot at Madison Square Garden Thursday night was a biggie? You should have been in Los Angeles' Olympic Auditorium, on the night of April 30, 1964, the night Mexican hero Alacran Torres fought Japan's Hiroyuke Ebihara. Now that was a riot. The building almost came down. When it comes to boxing riots, the Olympic wrote the book.

Little by little, point by point, victory celebration by victory celebration, the upstart U.S. boxing team is stealing its way into the spotlight. How long will it belong? There are far harder tests in front of the U.S. team and many days left of battle, but the coaches and boxers who have endured the jaded evaluations and NBC programming snubs know that they will wake up this morning as one of the hotter properties in these young Games. "We're 6-0, who can complain?"

Former lightweight champion Rafael Ruelas of Sylmar hopes to move back into title contention tonight when he fights Mike Walsh of La Mirada in a 10-round junior welterweight bout at the Beverly Hilton. Ruelas, 44-3 with 35 knockouts, lost his International Boxing Federation title to Oscar De La Hoya last year. He is not expected to get much of a challenge from Walsh, 16-3-3 with 13 knockouts.