By Jason Kim: 39-year-old former IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO junior middleweight champion Ronald “Winky” Wright (51-5-1, 25 KO’s) reportedly plans on making a comeback on April 9th against a still to be determined opponent on the undercard of WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez’s pay-per-view fight against Eric Morales at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Wright will be turning 40 in November and hasn’t fought in almost two years since losing a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision loss to Paul Williams in April 2009. Before that, Wright was defeated by Bernard Hopkins two years earlier in July 2007, losing by a fairly lopsided 12 round decision in that bout. At one time, Wright was considered the best fighter in the junior middleweight division wins victories over the likes of Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosley, who Wright defeated twice.

However, Wright’s career fell into a pattern of nothingness after the loss to Hopkins in 2007, as Wright waited around for big fights to come his way instead of staying busy the best he could by taking smaller fights until something big would open up. The two years off between Hopkins and and Williams didn’t help Wright’s skills, because he didn’t look sharp in the loss to Williams in 2009. Now, Wright will have been off for two more years by the time he steps into the ring on April 2011. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Wright needs to put his career in overdrive from here on out if he wants to take advantage of the time he has left. He would be better off fighting at middleweight rather than junior middleweight, because the middleweight division is weak right now and Wright, if he still has the skills left in his arsenal from the Williams fight, he would stand a good chance of beating one of the weaker middleweight champions like WBA title holder Felix Sturm. That’s a very winnable fight for Wright. It might not bring the kind of money that he’s accustomed to, but once he gets a title, then he can look to get a good money fight by seeking out unification bouts against guys like WBC champion Sergio Martinez or WBO champion Dimitry Pirog.