Winky Wright – Respect Long Overdue

By Rizwaan Zahid: Last Saturday, Ronald ‘Winky Wright’ outboxed Ike Quartey over 12 rounds, in the latest fight of what has been a tough career. He has traveled and fought around the world as much as some business clients. Not only has he repeatedly challenged the best, but he has on most occasions been in favour of mutual terms for fights, as well as always showing tremendous respect towards his opponents.

Yet somehow, the Florida native does not receive the recognition that he deserves.

During the early stages of his career, Wright wasn’t afraid to go in an opponent’s backyard. For Winky, it was France one night, Germany the next, down south to Argentina, and back up to France within a year.

After his first loss against Julio Cesar Vasquez, Winky went back to the usual, hoping to earn another title shot. His opportunity arrived in 1996, against WBO light middleweight champion, Bronco McKart. After a close twelve rounds, the title changed hands, giving Winky the first major title of his career.

At this point many would expect that the promotional deals and recognition would be lining up at the door. However, this was not the case.

His next three fights were in England, dominating all three. His next fight would be in yet another country, this time in South Africa.

Harry Simon, now known in South Africa as a possible murder, was relatively unknown at the time. After twelve nail biting rounds, the judges awarded Simon the winner, by majority decision.

His next fight would be in Miami, his first fight in the United States in nearly three years. An easy knockout set up an IBF title bout against Fernando Vargas.

Vargas was at the high point of his career. Coming off a win of Raul Marquez, Vargas won the title with a TKO win over then 72-2 Yori ‘Boy’ Campas. This was clearly the toughest fight for each fighter respectively.

Winky, a natural defensive fighter, and Vargas engaged in one of the best junior middleweight fights in recent memory. A back and forth fight, both showed a warrior like mentality, leaving nothing in the tank after a hard hitting twelve rounds.

Anxiety plagued the fighters and their corner men, while they awaited the decision. Unfortunately for Winky, a majority decision was awarded to Vargas.

An HBO fighter, as well as a fan favourite, Fernando Vargas was seen as a very big threat to many fighters in the division. If Winky could cause him trouble, who knows what else he could do? Wright then took nine months off, and came back with a plan that he would stick to. McKart had not lost since his first fight with Wright, and had the opportunity to avenge his loss, fighting Wright in a rematch, which was also an IBF eliminator.

Wright, unlike their first fight, dominated the rematch taking a comfortable twelve round decision.

In his title fight, he dominated every second of the fight, shutting out Robert Frazier over twelve rounds, and was crowned the new IBF champion.

A defensive master, with a lightning quick jab, he embarrassed many more fighters, but still was not receiving the popularity and credit. It wasn’t that other boxers thought he wasn’t good enough, but simply that he was too good, and was too much risk for the reward.

However, finally in 2004, Winky would receive an opportunity that would change his career. He was given an opportunity by ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosely, who was coming off a controversial victory over Oscar De La Hoya.

He was 33, and he knew this may be his last chance. A confident Wright stuck his jab in Mosley’s face all night, and repeatedly landing punches at will. Jabs, and counter straight left hands hammered Mosely over the twelve rounds. It was an upset to most ringside experts, as well as fans, and nearly everyone in the arena, except Winky Wright that is. He became the
first undisputed junior middleweight champion in history, holding the WBC, WBA, and the IBF titles simultaneously.

Being the respectful fighter that he is, when asked about his future fights, Winky replied “My first priority is to give Shane a rematch. Whenever he wants it, he’ll get it. He gave me the opportunity and I want to do the same for him."

He kept his word, and in November of that year, Winky would prove he was the best yet again, this time edging out a closer fight with Mosely, taking home a 12 round majority decision.

Then came a major pay per view event with Felix Trinidad. ‘Tito’ was coming off a dominating performance against Mayorga where he landed 55 punches in the single round.

Many expected Trinidad to easily hammer Wright with his explosive left hook. Many also felt that Winky could not handle the extra six pounds, since he moved up to middleweight for the fight.

Within the first two rounds, it was abundantly clear, this was Winky’s night. Not only did he beat Trinidad, he embarrassed him. Some would argue, that his performance was even more dominating then Hopkins victory over Trinidad.

Jab after jab was landing for Wright. However it was not only his offense that was working. In round four Trinidad unloaded a barrage of punches, only landing a couple with little effect. Winky replied with many left hands, as well as right hooks most of them landing flush.

Eight more rounds and more embarrassment for ‘Tito’ left Winky in one of the most convincing victories of his career.

Just how great was it? Tito over twelve rounds could only land 58 punches, never landing in double digits in a single round. Wright landed over a 180 jabs, and 260 total punches in the boxing clinic.

Would he bad mouth Trinidad, after the fight? No.

“Tito is my first honour,” said Wright. “I take my hat off to him. He has a heart of a champion. I’ll exercise the rematch clause. That was tonight. Next time may be different”

After having an ‘off’ night against Sam Soliman, Winky fought Jermain Taylor in a middleweight title fight. An extremely close twelve rounds, left the scorecards dead even, much to the dismay of Wright. Last Saturday, he beat Quartey over twelve rounds, the first convincing loss of Quartey’s career.

Criticism still reaches Wright as seen on Saturday night. He “doesn’t move on his feet anymore”, or he doesn’t “go for the knockout”, are all popular sayings.

Winky is now 35, and a three time champion. Trinidad, Mosely, McKart, Candelo, Hernandez, Quartey are all among Winky’s victims.

Is he in a potential fight of the year candidate every fight like Arturo Gatti? No. Does he possess tremendous one shot power? No.

What he does do though, is smile at his opponent, punches them, blocks their shots, and repeats the cycle again, to show that he’s the best and continues to prove critics wrong.

One thing is for sure; Winky Wright is the best example of the sweet science of boxing itself, by punching with precision, and without being hit himself by using his impeccable defensive skills. Each day even at the age of 35, he continues to turn the many doubters into believers, that he is truly that great of a fighter.

The New Wright: Following a trend of fighters who modified their styles for the better

By Alden "The Kid" Chodash: Did you notice the CompuBox punch count for the main event in Tampa on Saturday night? How does Ronald "Winky" Wright, whose defense is as impenetrable as anyone's in the fight game today, turn into an all-action punching machine?

It was only last May when Wright displayed a most disciplined, effective fighting style versus the rejuvenated living-legend in Felix Trinidad and shut him out over the course of twelve rounds. How could the same Winky Wright end up throwing 1000 plus shots, landing 27%, and taking 27% from Ike Quartey?

Wright did exactly that and in impressive fashion as well, dropping Quartey twice, and jamming the "Bazooka" for the majority of the battle. But Quartey fought back, especially in the closing two rounds, and got through Wright's less-than-impregnable guard more than expected. It's hard to judge by this fight alone but this may be the New Winky.

Wright isn't the only pugilist to modify his style to become more exciting for his fans. Most notably, Chris Byrd did the same thing. Early in Byrd's career, he was virtually untouchable, bitterly frustrating his opponents to the point that they forfeited the fight or were stopped due to fatigue and lack of confidence. Then in Tacoma, Washington 1999, Byrd went up against the Nigerian slugger Ike Ibeabuchi. For four rounds Ike cut off the ring and made contact on Chris to the body until a shocking left uppercut ended the night for Byrd in the fifth.

After Byrd struggled in beating Vitali Klitschko and then got annihilated by brother Wladimir, Byrd decided to base his career on pleasing crowds and cutting out some of his defensive wizardry. Although this new style resulted in a roller-coaster ride that was marked with controversial victories and an unexpected draw against Andrew Golota, Byrd was at least interesting. Earlier this year, however, Byrd's style backfired as Klitschko (the younger) blasted him out in seven.

Pernell "Sweet Pea" Whitaker modified his style late in his career though he wasn't aiming to please fans. Many of the circumstances in which Pernell, the once outstanding, untouchable defense-minded fighter, decided to engage was when opponents were too young, too quick, and too strong for the aging legend. Most notably, the bout with Diosbelys Hurtado.

Hurtado kept Whitaker at bay with his jab, floored him twice until the reckless and desperate Whitaker finally landed a big left hand in the 11th that finished the rising prospect. Whitaker, in his bout with Trinidad, also decided to try to out-hustle the young superstar but was unsuccessful and lost a lopsided decision.

Oscar De La Hoya has had several incidents in which he modified his style, though not always into a crowd pleasing, aggressive style. Early in his professional career "The Golden Boy" was set on destroying his antagonists as quickly as possible. That style backfired against extremely tough former champion John John Molina as Molina out-muscled De La Hoya but was unlucky not to get a decision. De La Hoya then focused on defense and dramatically improved, registering great victories against Rafael Ruelas, Genaro Hernandez, and "Jesse" James Leija. After winning two more world titles, De La Hoya was controversially defeated by Felix Trinidad and then slugged it out with "Sugar" Shane Mosley but lost a razor thin decision.

After taking nearly a whole year off, De La Hoya returned under the tutelage of Floyd Mayweather Sr. Mayweather, once an exceptional defensive fighter and contender, improved De La Hoya's underused right hand and added a shoulder roll to his arsenal. With those modifications, De La Hoya destroyed Arturo Gatti inside five rounds, shut out the durable Spaniard Javier Castillejo, and won in more impressive fashion than he'd ever had in stopping Fernando Vargas in eleven rounds. De La Hoya then went out to avenge his 2000 defeat to Shane Mosley and fought very well, impressing most viewers watching except, of course, the judges who unanimously scored the bout for Mosley in highly disputable fashion.

Though Wright's unexpected "switch-a-roo" resulted in a win against Quartey, hopefully Wright understands the danger he's in if he were to use the same strategy to try to dismantle the undefeated middleweight champion Jermain Taylor. The Quartey fight was the perfect opportunity for Winky to gain admirers of whose who once were critics of his near perfect, yet sometimes dull fighting technique and he took advantage of it. Wright once again did his work in style, even though he left the ring with battle wounds.