By Jim Slattengren: Winky Wright (51-5-1, 25 KOs) ran into a fighter that he had answers for tonight in getting badly beaten by Paul “Punisher” Williams (37-1, 27 KOs) by a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision at the Mandalay Bay Casino & Resort, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Williams unloaded a never ending amount of punches, preventing Wright from being able to block and counter punch. Wright, 37, who holds victories over Shane Mosley and Felix Trinidad, found himself under a constant barrage of punches from Williams.
It was a night that saw the 27-year-old Williams never tiring from throwing nonstop punches, even as the bout got into to the later stages. The judges’ scored it 119-109, 119-109 and 120-108, all for Williams.
Wright looked held his guard up for much of the fight, trying to block all the shots that Williams kept firing at him and it was just a hopeless situation, like trying to catch ever rain drop. To say that Williams had his way with Wright would be a tremendous understatement because he was landing at will all night long.
At first, it seemed as if Wright was trying to wait Williams out in the first three rounds of the bout, waiting for him to stop so that he could land his shots. However, when Williams continued throwing punch after punch without any rests in rounds four through six, Wright had a look as if he knew he was in deep trouble with no way out.
This wasn’t just a case of Wright being hit with a few combinations and then having to deal with his opponent quickly getting out of range, like in his 12-round decision loss to Bernard Hopkins in July 2007. Williams wasn’t moving away for a second, and just planted himself in front of Wright, daring him to make him stop punching.
Wright had nothing to move Williams from his place and had no weapons to fire back on Williams that could get his respect. Wright had brief moments in every round in which he’d fire off a counter punch or two, but those moments were rare and buried behind a blizzard of shots from Williams.
As the fight got into the later rounds, Wright’s face looked like it had been run over by a jeep. He was swollen, red and looking lumped up. To his credit, Wright continued fighting as hard as he could under the circumstance, but he really wasn’t doing anything other than taking an old fashioned beating from Williams.
For his part, Williams looked positively gleeful as he dished out punishment, seeming to be having a great time and not even looking as if he was breaking a sweat. Williams looked youthful and strong, whereas Wright appeared to be a fighter in his 40s, getting beaten to a pulp by a bully.
The fight was so one-sided, it actually was not particularly interesting to watch. It was like watching a fighter work on a heavy bag with nothing being thrown back, of course. I don’t know what to think of Wright. It’s hard to imagine him coming back from this kind of beating, but then again he was facing a special type of fighter.
Wright chose the wrong opponent to fight, and the wrong time (coming off a long layoff) to take the fight. If Wright were to be matched up against someone like Kelly Pavlik, Vernon Forrest, Felix Sturm or Arthur Abraham, I think Wright would do much better. I don’t if he could beat any of them, especially the way he looked tonight.
However, I believe Wright would certainly do much better against them than he did against Williams that much is for sure. Personally, I think Wright should retire from boxing. The fighters are too young, and he’s now looks too old after his two years away from boxing to be a factor anymore.
Sure, he might be able to pick off a fighter like Vernon Forrest if Wright’s interested in moving down in weight, but then a young lion like James Kirkland or Alfredo Angulo would be waiting in the wings to eat him up and given him likely an even worse beating than the one that Williams handed to him tonight.
At 37, sometimes a fighter’s body changes, making it hard for them to fight at the same standards they did before. I think that’s what’s happened with Wright. If he sticks around the sport, Wright is going to have to fight some tough fighters like Kirkland, Pavlik or Abraham, and I can’t see Wright doing well against those guys. They’re more solid fighters than Trinidad and Mosley, perhaps Wright’s two best wins of his career.
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