By Scott Gilfoid: In the latest boxing news, former light middleweight champion Ronald “Winky” Wright (51-4-1, 25 KOs) is reportedly highly interested in a bout with Oscar De La Hoya, whom he feels has been avoiding him for some time. This comes to no surprise to me that De La Hoya, or any other top fighter for that matter, would choose to avoid Wright, because he’s hard to beat even under the best circumstances. Since losing a 12-round unanimous decision to Bernard Hopkins in controversial fashion last July, Wright has been unable to find a top opponent that would be interested in taking him on, likely given his still largely intact boxing skills.
Wright, now 36, is interested mainly in several fighters, ranging from Floyd Mayweather Jr., Kelly Pavlik to De La Hoya. Unfortunately for Wright, each one of them have fights booked up for the remainder of 2008, and in De La Hoya’s case, he may be going after bigger fish, such as Miguel Cotto, after De La Hoya gets through with his next two fights against Steve Forbes and Mayweather. One can’t blame Wright for wanting a bout with anyone of them, especially De La Hoya, because the bout would mean a tremendous payday for Wright, likely well into the millions.
However, that’s not the only reason why Wright would want a bout with De La Hoya, for it would give Wright the golden chance at proving himself up against one of the best fighters in the 90s. Wright, for his part, was more of a late bloomer, coming into his own between 2000 and 2007. Before that, Wright had a mostly uneven career, beating good B-level fighters like Bronko McKart, then losing to A-level fighters like Harry Simon and Fernando Vargas. After the loss to Vargas in December 1999, Wright wouldn’t lose for the next eight years until being beaten by Hopkins in 2007.
Along the way, Wright defeated a string of excellent fighters, like Shane Mosley, whom he beat twice, Felix Trinidad, Sam Soliman and Ike Quartey. There was also a controversial draw with Jermain Taylor in June 2006, a bout in which many people, me included, consider Wright to have won. After this fight with Hopkins, instead of finding other fighters interested in mixing it up with him, Wright has found little interest coming his way from other junior middleweight and middleweight champions.
It’s odd, for Wright is quite popular, though not on the level of De La Hoya or Hopkins, but still very popular in the boxing community. However, as much as Wright would like a bout with Pavlik, De La Hoya and Mayweather, he has to face the eventual reality that probably none of them are interested in fighting him. I imagine he is seen as a spoiler at this point in his career, as he’s not as popular as the top fighters he wants to take on, but not weak enough for them to be willing to take a on the formidable risk that Wright brings to his bouts.
His defense is near flawless and his technical skills on offense are second to none, in that he doesn’t make many mistakes. Though his power is average, that’s not how he wins his fights. Instead of slugging it out, he tends to focus much of the time on shooting out his long jab and picking off his opponents with short combinations.
It’s a hard style to beat, just ask Trinidad, who Wright shut out completely in a one-sided 12-round decision in May 2005. That’s the scary thing about Wright; He doesn’t knock you out, he just makes you look bad by giving you a methodical boxing lesson. In the case of Trinidad, it was so one-sided that he promptly retired after the bout. I imagine that this scenario might haunt someone like De La Hoya, who had great difficulties in fighting Trinidad, eventually running out of gas and losing a 12-round decision to him in September 1999.
Wright, if he wants to continue fighting, he’s going to have to shoot much lower than the De La Hoyas, Pavliks and the Mayweathers of the boxing world. He should look to one of the European middleweight champions, someone like Felix Sturm or Arthur Abraham. Both are good fighters, yet haven’t really fought anyone through most of their careers. Abraham, if he gets by Edison Miranda in their upcoming bout, would be an excellent choice for an opponent.
At least Wright could get a title out of the match, which would help his bargaining power if he would still be interested in a bout with Pavlik or De La Hoya. Mayweather is pretty much out of the question, even more so than De La Hoya.