Winky Wright - Is Inactivity Hurting Wright’s Career?

By Chris Thomas: So far, it’s been six months since former light middleweight & middleweight champion Winky Wright (51-4-1, 25 KOs) last fought, losing a disappointing 12-round unanimous decision to Bernard Hopkins in July 2007 at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, instead of accepting the defeat and moving on, Wright, now 36, has become almost frozen in place, seemingly waiting for another huge mega-fight (you know, the type where each of the fighters are showered with millions of dollars) to come his way. Unfortunately for Wright, it isn’t happening and he seem none to pleased about it. Rather than starting over, perhaps taking a lesser fighter, Wright still waits for the one big fight to come knocking. As of now, he has no fights planned, and has already wasted six months of his career waiting. In an interview with ESPN’s writer Eric Raskin, Wright had this to say about taking on lesser quality fighters:

“Why should I go fight these lesser guys when I know I’m above them?…They want me to fight Kessler. Why do I need to fight these dudes? I’m at the top. Arthur Abraham and people like that, I have no interest in them. For what?”

Perhaps to many people, Wright’s thinking would seem almost absurd, for Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham are both quality opponents, certainly nothing to be ashamed of fighting. In point of fact, I see Kessler as having the better boxing skills than Wright, along with the youth factor, and would very likely beat him. However, since Kessler is still largely unknown and is currently not a champion, it wouldn’t likely bring in much money for Wright, but it would definitely help his career if he were to somehow win the fight.

For Wright to be bypassing excellent fighters like Abraham, Kessler or a Felix Sturm, the WBA middleweight champion, seems rather astonishing, because these are pretty much the top fighters in their perspective weight classes. Though there’s one fighter better at super middleweight than Kessler - Joe Calzaghe - he’s made it public that he’ll be retiring after this year, and Wright wouldn’t figure into his plans due to his recent loss to Bernard Hopkins. In the middleweight division, Jermain Taylor has problems of his own, trying to regain his lost titles in a rematch with Kelly Pavlik.

Perhaps the loser of the fight, likely Taylor, would be interested in a bout with Wright, although I would highly doubt it. Pavlik, for his part, has a lot of other options available for him following his fight with Taylor, starting with a fight with the currently undefeated middleweight John Duddy. I suppose at some point in the future, Pavlik’s schedule may open up, but it’s unclear whether he would want to fill that with a bout with Wright, especially if he was been sitting idle for a year or more waiting.

By then, Wright’s once dangerous reputation as a fighter that you want to avoid, will have been tarnished due to the substantial time way from the sport. Based on this, it would seem logical for Wright to take on fighters like Abraham or Kessler, if he can get them, and keep winning until something opens up for him. Of course, Wright won’t be getting Oscar De La Hoya or Floyd Mayweather Jr-like, but it would hopefully keep him on course for decent paying bouts in the future.